


Alleyways of The Human Condition

by ThisIsNotReality



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crime Scenes, Drama, Established Relationship, Homophobia, Insecurity, Kidnapping, M/M, Slash, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 45,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsNotReality/pseuds/ThisIsNotReality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ultimate concerns of the human existence: Loneliness, Meaning, Freedom and Mortality. When people find out about them, John and Sherlock's realtionship comes under pressure because Sherlock has realised something that causes him to believe John will eventually leave him. Newly established SH/JW (can be read as a sequel to 'At Night', but is created independently from it).<br/>Originally posted on FF.net (and not complete yet).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The cab-ride

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> To get you started: The main PoV is John's, but it will change on occasions - and I will tell you, don't worry.  
> This fic takes place some undefined time after "The Return" - it does not deal with it - and therefore it does contain some spoilers.

**The cab-ride  
** John's PoV

The case had been… Interesting, John thought. Not that he had really known what was going on though, because he had stopped listening at some point. Sherlock's deductions had been brilliant as always, and John had told him so (getting the timing right had been a little hard, given that he had stopped listening).

What John knew of the case was that it involved a gas oven, a syringe full of adrenaline (technically it was empty, laying next to the victim) and the victim, a middle-aged man dressed in women's clothes – clothes that had been put on post mortem. How on earth Sherlock had managed to find the case boring was beyond John, but perhaps it had had something to do with the fact that it appeared to be solved when they left the crime scene.

The reason John had stopped listening was, of course, Sherlock. The thing about their relationship was that no one knew about it yet. John knew that Sherlock liked having secrets, or rather: He liked having information that no one else had, and that he could tell at just the right time. At the crime scene Sherlock had been standing closer to John than usual, sometimes even breathing down his neck. Once, when John had been hunched over the body on the floor, Sherlock had let his soft lips ghost over the skin on his neck, somehow a thing that went unnoticed by everyone else present. Presumably that had been around the same time at which John had stopped listening to anything going on around him.

It was one thing to giggle at a crime scene, it was quite another, in John's book, to have a hard on while staring down at a very dead body.

The rest of the time they were there, Sherlock had made little touches, accidentally brushing their hands together, touching John's thigh. And when Lestrade had come to talk to John just when he and Sherlock were taking off, Sherlock had put his hand on the small of John's back, refusing to leave his side, even though the DI clearly wanted to talk to John alone. Sherlock's presence had left the DI a bit flustered and he had ended up asking if John had time for a pint the next evening. At that point Sherlock's face had clouded over, and John had quickly agreed to go for a pint before guiding Sherlock out of the house and onto the street to get a cab.

John found himself in a strange limbo between being indecently aroused and being annoyed at Sherlock's obvious display of jealousy. So John had decided to use the time before they could hail a cab to confront Sherlock with it, now that they were out of earshot from the yarders. He had told Sherlock that Lestrade was only asking him out on a pint as a friend, and if,  _if_ , Sherlock were frightened about someone trying to steal John away from him, then they should make their relationship official. Sherlock had snorted that he wasn't afraid of that and had mumbled something incomprehensible.

Then a cab had pulled up and the two of them had crawled into the backseat. And here they were now, sitting side by side, not speaking.

Sherlock's hand snaked its way across the seat and found John's, intertwining their fingers. He still didn't turn his head to look at John, but kept looking out on the darkly lit London streets.

"Sherlock what's wrong?" John finally managed to get the question out, while his racing heart did a very nice job of distracting him from anything that wasn't Sherlock's neck, Sherlock's long pale neck all the way up to the jaw line and those soft lips…

"I have to repeat myself, I suppose, since your focus is anywhere but you hearing," Sherlock cut through John's thoughts with a sharp voice, "As I said before on the sidewalk, I don't want them to know, because no-one is going to believe us, or they are going to give it their best shot at chasing you away from me."

The pale man next to John looked even paler when the words had left his lips.

"Sherlock, nothing anyone says is going to chase me away from you, you dimwit – otherwise it already would have." John shot a reassuring smile to the back of Sherlock's head, knowing that the detective would be able to see it vaguely in the window of the cab.

Sherlock turned to look at him, and John could feel himself being stripped by those grey, sparkling eyes,

"You know, I know it's all just chemistry, but I…" Sherlock strolled off, and John's heart made a jump, he knew where that sentence was going, and even though the man next to him probably never would be able to finish it, the beginning of it was just as amazing, and said just as much.

John moved closer to Sherlock and reached a hand up to cradle his face, by God he wanted that man next to him, the cab couldn't reach Baker Street soon enough. The sad fact was, however, that they had at least twenty minutes left in the damn thing. Sherlock bend down and carefully kissed John, his lips searching to confirm that John knew the end of the sentence he had begun. Instead of saying anything, John pulled Sherlock closer and intensified the kiss, pushing his tongue into the other mans mouth and felt more than heard a soft moan escape Sherlock's lips.

And that was when John really began wishing for two things: That teleportation had already been invented, and that he were able to control his blood flow (without the use of rather disturbing images). Sherlock had moved his other hand to John's thigh and his fingers were now carefully making their way to his crotch. John could feel himself trembling with need, and it was only by the very strongest of efforts that he remembered they were still in a cab.

"Oi, you two!" The cabbie almost yelled at them, "fucking buggers! Ya has got nothin' to do in my cab!" and with that exclamation, the cab came to an abrupt halt in the middle of a street.

John had by the mere surprise of the cabbie's words extracted himself from Sherlock, and felt somewhat ashamed. Not that he minded being in a relationship with a man, to be honest he had a hard time comprehending why on earth gay couples bothered anyone, and he was, because of Harry not unused to peoples narrow-mindedness. What made him ashamed though was that he was a grown man acting like a teenager in the back of a cab, and the fact that he should have known better than forgetting about the cabdriver after the first case he had helped Sherlock with.

"It's ' _have',_ " Sherlock cut through the air.

"Wha'?" said the cabbie and looked angrily back at Sherlock. John could have sworn that those were the looks of someone whishing they had an aluminium bat with them. Maybe he had?

"It's: You  _have_ got nothing to do in my cab." Sherlock stated coolly, "And if you insist on letting us out here, we are not going to pay for the ride."

Sherlock turned his attention back to John, who really didn't want this to escalate into something immensely stupid,

" _Out!_ " Sherlock simply said to John, who almost jumped like a coiled spring and hurried out the car door. Under any other circumstances John would have done or said something, maybe even try to make the cabbie come to some sort of understanding of it all (at least come to an understanding of the fact that the calendar now read the 21st century  _AD_ , not 21st century BC). But right now he had too many confusing, and contradicting, emotions going on inside of him to really do anything but what Sherlock told him to do.

They could hear the cabbie yelling at them as he drove off, but apparently he had wanted to get them out of his cab more than he had wanted to get paid.

"Well that was somewhat unexpected." Sherlock said as he looked down at John, "I don't quit comprehend why that would have bothered him."

John sighed. Off course Sherlock wouldn't understand something like that,

"Just… Some people are more idiots than others you know, and they can't really accept that others are… different," John began.

"I'm not that stupid John, off course I'm aware that some peoples brains are smaller than others – I've met Anderson remember. But as a cabbie he must have seen worse than that. He gets paid for ignoring things like that."

"I'm not saying what he did was okay, but to be fair, he doesn't get paid to look at people getting it off on the backseat of his car." John didn't really understand why he had a sudden urge to defend the cabbie, because the more he thought about it, the angrier he got – especially by the words the man had used.

John rather expected Sherlock to retort on that, perhaps to say something about animal programs and voyeurism. But he was met by silence.

As he turned around to look at Sherlock, the man was gone, nowhere to be seen; only some people from a nearby pub were standing out on the street.

Suddenly he felt a strong grip on his arm and another, glove clad hand closed itself over his mouth. With quite some force he was being dragged into a dark, quiet alleyway and out of sight from the people outside of the pub, out of sight from the street or any random passerby.


	2. The alleyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**The alleyway  
** John's PoV

He felt panic rise inside of him as he was forced to walk backwards, and he somehow lost track of everything but the body behind him.

It was a man, taller than himself, slimmer but stronger, especially with the added advantage that the element of surprise gives you. There was something about him that John couldn't place as he tried his best to struggle free, something that told him he knew who the man was. And either the man was an excellent fighter or he knew John, because for every move John made struggling to get free of his grip, the man averted it like he anticipated it somehow.

The grip on his arm tightened and the hand covering his mouth was removed, which unfortunately made little difference, because by now no one out on the street would probably be able to hear anything. John felt his heart pound as he was pushed face-first into a cold brick wall. Where was Sherlock? Someone had presumably taken him as well. He was just about to call out for him when the man behind him pushed himself against John's back and he could feel a very hard cock pressing itself against him. The pieces of the puzzle came together along with anger and arousal,

" _Sherlock._ " John whispered and felt the other mans lips on his neck,

"Sherlock, this is not good, you scared me you know…" he panted, but he couldn't help but to feel himself getting as hard as he could feel Sherlock was as he pressed him against the wall. John had definitely not expected this from Sherlock – or the fact that he himself would… Enjoy it?

"You are a soldier, you should be able to handle it." Sherlock whispered in his ear and let his tongue run over John's earlobe before sucking it into his mouth.

"Yes, Sherlock, I'm a soldier. You know, I could have hurt you – severely." John managed to press the words out from between his lips as he felt Sherlock's fingers finding their way to the front of his jeans and began to tug at his belt.

"Not a chance, I know you too well, I know every move you consider making from just one muscle movement. I've studied you," Sherlock whispered with a rather erratic breath,

" _And for that very same reason, I know you are not going anywhere right now._ " He added in a low, almost threatening tone of voice.

John gave up, or rather, he gave in to Sherlock and placed his hands on the brick wall on either side of his head and leaned his forehead against the cold surface, pushing himself into Sherlock's erection and leaving enough room for the taller man to open his belt buckle. He couldn't help but to let out a moan when he felt Sherlock's firm grip on his jeans and pants, pulling them all the way down to his ankles. John had never considered himself an exhibitionist, but standing there in a dark alleyway, even though the odds where that no-one would see them, exposed from the waist down and with the cool air caressing his skin he felt his blood rush through his veins and his cock twitched. He had to part his lips to draw in a sharp breath of air.

"I thought you might like it." Sherlock's voice came somewhat triumphant from behind him, and John could almost see that smug smile on his face. God how he wanted to turn around and force Sherlock down on his knees and just fuck that soft, smug smile until he begged for John to touch him.

But Sherlock was the one who had John pinned against an alley wall, and John could tell that there was no way Sherlock was letting him go just now.

John heard the sound of a zipper being opened, and he almost subconsciously spread his legs a little. He needed to feel Sherlock inside of him right now. He tightened his grip on the wall to steady himself, and he heard a silent click coming from behind him,

"Sherlock what… w-what's that?" he asked with some difficulty, it couldn't possibly be… Because that would mean that Sherlock…

"It's lube… I've carried it for quit a while now, just in case…" Sherlock's voice broke off as a slick finger pushed against John's opening and entered, at the same time as his other hand got a firm grip on John's left hip.

John moaned, trust Sherlock to be constantly prepared for not one, but two things now: dead bodies and sex. John felt a little concerned about what others would assume if they found out that Sherlock carried lube around with him – probably in the morgue as well – especially if they didn't know about the two of them.

Every thought John had disappeared at that moment when a second finger entered him and began scissoring him open. He could feel Sherlock's hard, wet cock against his arse, and the hot, erratic breath mixed with moans of want that brushed over his neck. If possible, he had never wanted Sherlock as much as he wanted him right this instance.

"I'm… Oh  _bloody hell Sherlock, just fuck me already,_ " John managed to say, and apparently that was more than enough. As much as Sherlock sometimes liked to drag things out until John was on the verge of tears from want, the detective seemed to be on the brink of losing control himself. John loved how he could bring Sherlock to that edge, it seemed to him that anything or anyone else who could bring Sherlock there, only were able to because of bad things, not good things like this.

John sucked in a deep breath as Sherlock pushed himself into him and filled him up, eliciting a loud moan only muffled against the back of John's head.

"Oh God, John…" Sherlock almost panted as he tightened his hold on John's hips and pulled himself out. John almost came just thinking about what was to come next, he knew this part far too well, and he loved it.

Sherlock held still, only the tip of his cock was inside of John, he released his right hand from John's hip and let his index finger find the pre-come on the tip of John's cock, rubbing little circles there before slowly dragging the finger down the underside of the twitching erection and reaching the testicles that now felt far too tight, begging for release. John whimpered as Sherlock closed his fingers around them, holding them in a firm grip.

And then he pushed back into John with all the force he could muster, forcing a loud groan from John's lips as he hit his prostate over and over again.

"Scream for me, Scream for me John…" Sherlock almost sneered at John as he kept pushing himself faster and deeper into him.

He leaned forward and rested his forehead on the back of John's,

" _John, I need… I need to hear you!_ " He panted into John's neck. And John let go; deciding that no one could hear them anyway, and any last rational thought fled his brain head over heals.

" _OH GOD, FUCK YES! Yes Sherlock, fuck YES… Harder! Fuck, fuck I love you!_ " John screamed until his throat was sore and all that escaped was indistinguishable sounds.

He felt Sherlock's grip on his testicles and hips tighten and felt the other man's movements become more erratic, uncontrolled.

Sherlock moved his hand and began stroking John's cock in the same (arhythmic) rhythm with which he was pushing himself into John. And John felt the world literally disappear around him as he felt an orgasm roll over him and he pushed himself into Sherlock's chest and felt more than heard the detectives panting as he came inside of him.

They stood still for a while trying to catch their breath.

Finally Sherlock pulled out and bent down to pull John's jeans and pants up again. This was going to be uncomfortable in a very short while. But right now John couldn't really care less.

"Hey, you two!" A sharp voice rang trough the alleyway. This was probably not a good sign John decided as he turned to face the voice and saw a bobby.

This was really not good. As great as the sex had been, John didn't really want to get an ASBO, which he presumed they'd get if the bobby had seen anything of what had been going on just within the last few minutes. And judging by the facial expression of the sergeant, he had seen more than enough.

"What seems to be the problem, constable?" Sherlock sneered. Apparently he was even less fond of the interruption, and less concerned about an ASBO, than John was, because even with the lack of light, Sherlock would have no doubt about the rank of a uniformed police officer.

"It's  _Sergeant_ , and the two of you seems to be the problem," The sergeant retorted and moved towards them. It was clear that his initial bewilderment on how to handle this 'situation', seen as it did occur in an alleyway hidden from sight, had now vanished.

"I don't se wh…" Sherlock began. John cut him off,

"We're sorry, sergeant, we didn't… we didn't think anyone would… you know," John said, feeling at a loss.

"No, I don't suppose you did, now did you." The sergeant answered, still sounding irritated, but he was a little friendlier towards John.

"There's no need for this, you can stroll of on your  _duties_ , and we will vacate the premises," Sherlock said with what John recognised as a bit of a dangerous tone of voice. John had to wonder how come the man hadn't been dragged off in handcuffs more often. He snorted at the mental image of Sherlock in handcuffs, preferably chained to his bed, or perhaps to…

"You think this is funny, now do you? We were called out here because someone thought an assault was taking place, what with the howling and all." The sergeant said as he straightened his back and did his best to look intimidating. It almost worked, and it would have worked perfectly well on anyone who had not met Moriarty or had been in a warzone. John decided to act as if he did get intimidated.

And then he eyed the other bobby standing in the shadows behind the sergeant. Christ, this was not going to go away now was it?

"You are coming with us, the both of you."

John heard Sherlock draw in a breath and vividly imagined all the protests the man would make, so he decided to shoot him a glance saying 'don't make this any worse'. By some strange magic it actually worked, and Sherlock seemed to deflate in front of his eyes.


	3. The Yard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**The Yard  
** John's PoV

This had been humiliating. John was still staring at the paper in his hand and shook his head in disbelief. All he really wanted to do was to go home and have a much needed shower. But somehow Sherlock had managed to get himself into more trouble. It wasn't really any wonder though, because as much as John loved the man, he was well aware of the fact that telling a sergeant that he was ridiculously bad at his job – and that he spend his time focused on the wrong people – was a bad idea (even though John had to agree with Sherlock on that one, because if the sergeant had  _observed_ , then he would have been able to stop a drunken man from hitting another drunk with a bottle, or at least catch the bloke before he disappeared). Pointing out this fact had not been taken well by the sergeant.

John sighed; he just wanted the police officers to be done with harassing Sherlock (and vice versa) before they bumped into anyone they knew at the Yard. He took a sip of the horrible coffee from the vent and almost choked when a voice came from behind,

"So, ya here to bail the freak out?"

The sly voice came from sergeant Donovan who was looking like she was having the time of her life.

"I'm sorry what?" John looked at her in confusion, some rumours apparently ran faster than others and apparently he wasn't included – yet.

"Don't pretend. The whole Yard knows, he was brought in for banging some poor bloke in an alleyway of all places." She studied him with a gloating expression mixed with curiosity,

"And I'm guessing you are here to pick him up. Didn't think anyone would dare to have consensual sex with the man. Then again, if he's the only one brought in – and if he's still in there with a couple of officers, perhaps it wasn't consensual after all?"

John felt like he had lost his ability to speak. This was like the story of one feather turning into five hens *****  – only in this story the feather also turned from white to black.

He just glared at her. On one hand he wanted to tell her that  _he_ had been the other man in that alleyway, on the other he was afraid that if he said anything, Sherlock would shut him out. But a rumour like this would be a really bad thing.

"So that's how it is? He raped a poor sod. I told you to get a better hobby you know. Don't let him drag you down with him," Donovan said, almost looking sad on John's behalf.

Sod it; this had to be stopped regardless of what other rumours would spring or how much Sherlock would later protest,

"He didn't. The only reason he is still in there talking to the police is because he has to comment everything. He wasn't  _'raping some bloke in an alleyway'_ , he was with me," John finally sneered at her.

Her mouth fell open and shut a couple of times and she looked like a goldfish that didn't know whether it was still in water or had been hauled up into the air,

"With  _you_?" She finally managed to say, sounding almost disbelieving and torn between whether this new information was worse or better than her previous assumption.

"With me." John stated coolly.

"Are you two – what, you mean  _with_  you? No, you aren't a couple, are ya'?" She said sceptically.

And that was the inevitable question John had no real answer to, because it had not been a discussion they had had yet. And frankly every time he had tried to talk to Sherlock about anything in that regard, whether it being the ease of washing (some) clothes together, sharing a bedroom (which would mean that Sherlock would get an entire room for his experiments – and they almost always slept together anyway, when Sherlock slept that was), or just saying the word 'relationship', the man's eyes had gone distant for a couple of seconds, and then he had proceeded to turn John on. This had been an obvious distraction, but it had worked every time non-the less.

The talk they had had in the cab was probably the first time Sherlock had ever uttered anything indicating that he  _thought_  of them as a couple. John, however, had seen them like a couple for months now.

"Amazing how far you are willing to go to protect the freak," Donovan said as she tore him out of his thoughts.

John blinked at her.

He drew in a sharp breath and made up his mind,

" _Sherlock_  and I are together, I'm not saying it to protect him. We just haven't had a talk about the definition of our… erm 'relationship' yet." This was probably not going to go over well with Sherlock, but John simply couldn't have that other potential rumour going around.

"Seriously? You are seriously telling me that you two are involved?" She looked sceptically at John.

"Yes that is what I'm telling you. And there is nothing more to say." John snapped.

"And he doesn't want anyone else to know? Listen John, you are a good man, you should stay away from that psychopath," Donovan said in a sympathetic voice.

John sighed. Why did she have to show up here anyway?

"I don't want to discuss this with you. The end." He said as he turned to leave and go anywhere where Donovan, or anyone else he knew from the Yard for that matter, was not present.

Just to be on the safe side he locked himself into a bathroom and stood looking at himself in the mirror. Sherlock had probably been right about people wanting to scare him off, but that was a ridicules thing to be afraid of, because if he was that easily scared away from Sherlock, he wouldn't have moved into the flat in the first place. It seemed that he had been right about people not believing them to be involved too (apparently there was a difference between what people liked to assume and what they were willing to believe when faced with the truth). Or perhaps that just sprung from the starting point of his conversation with Donovan.

So perhaps Sherlock just had a twisted idea of exactly _how_  people would react upon knowing – it could seem like he thought that an openly revealed relationship would result in a lot of people wanting to 'save' John by trying to seduce him.

Or perhaps Sherlock was just that jealous, possessive and ashamed of John? Even though he would probably never admit it.

John looked at himself closely. He was in his own opinion no match in physical attractiveness to the younger detective.

But John needed to know where they stood. Where he stood.

And now he had to await Sherlock's reaction to what he had told Donovan. And to the fact that it was  _Donovan_  he had told.

His phone buzzed;

**Sherlock Holmes – Message received 10:47 pm**  
 _Where are you? The idiots are done now. – SH_

John went out of the bathroom and found his way back to where he knew Sherlock had been talking to the officers.

"Good, I see you didn't get all lost," Sherlock said in an almost teasing voice as he dissected John with his eyes, and John could tell the second Sherlock's vague smile fell that he could see something was wrong.

"Let's go home," Sherlock simply said and paced out of the Yard to hail a cab.

The ride home was accompanied by utter silence, and John fled the cab almost before it held still, unlocked the door and hurried up to the flat without waiting for Sherlock. He didn't really know what was going to happen now, but he knew they needed to talk.

He had situated himself in his chair and waited for Sherlock to come up the stairwell, something that took surprisingly long, and he could hear the slow steps coming up. This was not good.

Sherlock slid silently into the drawing room and loomed at the doorway,

"You told someone about us," He stated flatly with a strange expression in his eyes.

"Yes, and I know you for some reason want to keep it a secret. But it was either that or a rumour about you raping someone," John said giving him a firm glance.

"You told Donovan?"

"Yes," John sighed, "she was the one who was starting to speculate."

"I could have handled a ridicules rumour like that you know."

"You are ashamed of me – that's the real reason you don't want anyone to know, right." John said, feeling like an idiot for in any way believing that he could be anything else than Sherlock's guilty secret.

"No," Sherlock answered firmly.

"Then why don't you want anyone to know?"

"I told you in the cab."

"That's just a pitiful excuse, and you know it. You know that nothing people would say could drive me away, and you at least  _should_ know that being in an open relationship minimises the risk of someone trying to seduce one of the participants in the relationship. And people tend to think we are a couple anyway, they did it before we even got involved, and the only reason Donovan had a hard time believing it was because of the circumstances under which she was told."

John rested his elbows on his knees and hid his head in his hands exclaiming a despaired sigh,

"So the only reason I see is that you are ashamed of me somehow," He finally said.

There was a long moment of silence before Sherlock said in almost a whisper,

"No, John, I'm not ashamed of you."

"Then what's the real reason?" John turned his head and looked at Sherlock who had an almost sad expression on his face and looked anywhere but towards John.

"Sod it, I'm taking a shower and then I'm going to bed," John said as he stood up, rushed past Sherlock and ran up the stairs to the bathroom.

The shower gave him some peace of mind, or at least it took his mind of off things for the minutes it lasted.

When he had settled himself under his duvet and tried to let go of enough anger to find rest and go to sleep he heard steps coming up the stairwell and silently the door creaked open,

"John, can I come in?" Sherlock asked in an unfamiliar and insecure voice.

"No, I just want to be alone right now," John said and turned to his side, facing away from the door.

"I'm not ashamed of you, I actually… I have always liked that people thought someone like you would be with me – even before," The unfamiliar tone of voice said from the doorway.

John turned around and looked at the man he loved,

"Then why, Sherlock? If you're not ashamed of me, then why did you not want anyone to know?" he said, not having the faintest idea of what any other good reason would be.

"I don't know…" The dark figure said.

"I don't believe you, I think you're ashamed of me, and you just won't admit it to my face," John replied in a sad voice feeling a lump grow in his stomach. Perhaps he had just been a toy all along, an experiment Sherlock did not wish others to find out about,

"Please leave, I want to sleep." He turned to face away from the door again and heard it close almost as silently as it had opened. But he didn't hear any steps on the stairs, instead he heard a sound that, to his disbelieve, indicated that Sherlock had slid down to sit leaned back against his bedroom door.

John felt his anger being mixed with guilt, there had been something in the way Sherlock had reacted, in the tone of his voice that made him seem so fragile, like he was hurt that John could ever think he was ashamed of him. Maybe he should just open the door and let Sherlock in, clearly something was wrong, and to be honest, John thought, he had perhaps overreacted and made a mistake by just getting mad instead of trying to get Sherlock to talk about something that did not come easy to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The FEATHER-thing is about one little thing being retold as a rumour, escalating and being blown out of proportions and made into something it is not - couldn't find an english saying, sorry. But it originates from the writer H.C. Andersen's very short, and a bit funny, story "It's Quite True!"
> 
> andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/ItsQuiteTrue.html?oph=1


	4. Behind the door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**Behind the door**  
Sherlock's PoV

Sherlock slowly exhaled as he slid down on the wrong side of the door to John's bedroom. He couldn't tell John his reason for not wanting anyone to know, because that would for sure mean the end of  _them_.

In general he liked that John was cleverer than the other idiots, and quicker on the uptake of things. But right now Sherlock wished that John wasn't.

Of course he knew that if others were able to scare John away from him, it would have happened ages ago. It could have happened after the first time Mycroft had picked him up, or when the police had made a pretend drugs-bust. Sherlock would have understood if John had run away after being kidnapped by Moriarty, or if he had been too hurt about the whole business with  _The Woman_ 's return into their lives (and Sherlock understood, vaguely, why John didn't like that Sherlock hadn't told him she wasn't dead in the first place – but as Sherlock had pointed out, John hadn't told him that Mycroft thought she was dead).

And it was rather obvious that people in general would believe them to be involved – they had believed so almost from the very beginning of their acquaintance.

But it had been worth a shot, even though he had to admit that it was a couple of very poor lies. Somehow he had trouble lying to John – either the lies were too obvious or John somehow almost always saw right through them. He knew Sherlock too well.

Sherlock sat in the dark hallway against the door and carefully listened to the vague sound of John's breathing as it slowed down. His own breath got stuck in his throat – he wished that he could be in there with John, and that John would hold him tight like he often did when he could feel that something was bothering Sherlock, and that Sherlock couldn't (or wouldn't) tell what it was.

It was a bit fascinating, though, that for all of John's abilities to see through Sherlock's lies, he was able to convince himself that Sherlock was ashamed of him. That was simply preposterous. Sherlock had always secretly been proud of John, and it had warmed him that John had stayed and wanted to be known as someone associated with Sherlock. This was the reason why he had introduced John as his friend to Sebastian Wilkes when they went to the bank. He had wanted that sly, repulsive man to know that he, Sherlock Holmes, were able to have a friend. Unfortunately that had been too early for John.

Sherlock rested his head in his hands, not knowing what to do. Obviously he didn't think that it made the possibility of someone trying to steal John away from him less if no-one knew about their relationship, on the contrary he knew it made the risk higher than it already were. Even though relationships and feelings wasn't exactly his strong suit, this was an easy fact to deduce.

And no matter how much he…  _liked_  Lestrade, he had to admit that he saw the man as a potential threat.

He sighed, he wanted to tell John why he didn't want people to know, but to even think of the reason made his stomach clench. Sherlock deeply wished that he hadn't come to the realisation that his reason rested upon, and it was a bit surprising that John hadn't already thought about it himself. Or perhaps he had, and he just didn't want to tell Sherlock until the hour came where he was going to leave him.

If people knew about them, then it would be so much harder to be left behind when the time came – and the time would eventually come, Sherlock had no doubt about it, the only question was when. And if Sherlock told John, given that John hadn't thought about it himself, then that time would come so much sooner.

Sherlock rested his head back against the door. He could still vaguely hear the light breathing of a John sound asleep on the other side of it. If he tried to go in now there would be several possible outcomes:

1a: John would wake and tell him to leave immediately.  
1b: He would wake and not say anything but move over to make room for Sherlock in his bed and:  
1b-i: hold him tight, or:  
1b-ii: they would begin to have make-up sex and John would apologise (unnecessarily) afterwards.  
1c: He would wake up and demand that Sherlock told him the truth.

Or:

2: John would not wake up at all, but move in his sleep and drag Sherlock closer as he had done so many times before – this would result in either:  
2-i: a grumpy John when he woke up, or:  
2-ii: he would have forgotten about being in a bad mood the night before and act like this was just another normal morning waking up next to Sherlock.

It nagged Sherlock that there obviously were several other possibilities, but right now his mind couldn't focus on them.

He drew in a decisive, sharp breath and got to his feet. If he was going to loose John soon, he might as well be near him as much as possible before that happened.

He slowly opened the door again and entered the dark room. Careful not to make too much noise he slowly took off his clothes and sat on the bedside watching John as he stirred in his sleep. Sherlock couldn't help it, he had to stretch out his hand and let his fingers slowly chase over John's cheekbone, down along his cheek and over his soft lips. He could feel the moist breath that eluded John as his lips parted at the touch.

Sherlock realised that no matter what would happen, he had to tell him of his realisation and the reason why he hadn't wanted anyone to know.

He leaned in over John and placed a soft kiss on his lips. The man stirred underneath his touch and sleepily reciprocated it. Clearly John had awakened from his sleep. Sherlock became aware that he wished he had stayed asleep, so he could postpone the inevitable just a little longer.

"Sherlock," John said sleepily, "I thought I told you to leave?"

"Yes, but John…" Sherlock began.

"Shh… Sherlock, we can talk about it tomorrow."

"I should leave," Sherlock said before John said the words, making an effort to make it sound like a statement instead of the question it really was.

"No, please don't," John answered softly and scooted over while lifting the duvet to make room for Sherlock.

Sherlock took the invitation, crept under the duvet and pressed himself into John's warm body. He inhaled the warm smell and pressed a kiss against John's collarbone,

"John, I need to tell you now…" He tried again.

"No, you need to tell me tomorrow, right now we both need to sleep." John said as he pressed a soft kiss on Sherlock's forehead. He drew him closer, and Sherlock lay still, slowed down his breathing and pretended to fall asleep just to feel John relax around him and go back to sleep.

Sherlock stared into the darkness he knew was John's chest and wondered if this would be the last time they could lay like this. After tomorrow John would probably think it best that they didn't. Emotions wasn't something he could easily predict, but at this he was certain, John wasn't getting any younger after all, and he was a man of action. So based upon these two facts his reaction when he realised what was bothering Sherlock (because he would see that Sherlock was right) would be to stop everything between them.

And Sherlock would be left alone.

And presumably, over time, when everything Sherlock anticipated would happen had happened, John would stop seeing Sherlock, even stop being his friend. Maybe the leaving part was unavoidable, but the part where they stopped knowing each other had been avoidable up until that point when people knew about their… involvement. Personally he found it utterly irrelevant and found that it shouldn't change anything about them being friends if anyone knew, but he had learned that other people didn't see things that way, and John was usually very considerate about other peoples feelings.

Sherlock began to drift in and out of consciousness, no matter how hard he tried not to; he had every intention of staying awake just listening to John sleeping, feeling him. But eventually he gave up fighting against it and fell to sleep.

He woke up with a startled gasp; he hated dreaming, especially because dreams sometimes tended to be illogical and completely out of terms with reality. This dream had been particularly unnerving, because it had contained parts of reality and parts he hoped weren't reality (and parts he knew could never be reality). It had been about the pint he knew John was having with Lestrade the upcoming evening, but it wasn't a friendly appointment, it was a date escalating into John and Lestrade getting married (this was obviously a part of his imagination, seen as men couldn't get married, only enter into civil partnership). On any other occasion Sherlock would have found the thought of Lestrade in a wedding gown funny, but not in this context. It was ridicules, because he  _knew_  it was a dream. But still he couldn't shake the feeling it had given him or how he had almost felt like crying when he had been forced to watch the two of them living in domestic bliss with Lestrade expecting their third child. Sherlock had to wonder how on earth such a crazy, illogical, biologically impossible idea as a man being pregnant had ever occurred in his mind (maybe he hadn't done as good a job as he thought when he tried to delete that so-called movie with that Austrian actor John had once forced him to watch under the pretention of it being  _funny_ ).

Sherlock stretched out an arm to confirm that John was still his, still laying next to him. But the other side of the bed was empty and cold.

He got up and got dressed in the same clothes he had left on the floor last night and went down stairs.

There was no John in the drawing room and no John in the kitchen.

In fact there seemed to be no John at all in 221B Baker Street.

Sherlock began to panic a bit, had John seen right through him, had he  _deduced_  Sherlock's realisation (and his reason) and decided to make it as painless for himself as possible and just take off? But that would be odd, since all of the belongings he would need (or, being sentimental as he was, would take with him because he treasured them or their memories) were still there.

Sherlock had checked  _all_  of the items.

Maybe John had just gotten sick of Sherlock and had left in a hurry?

Sherlock began pacing the drawing room. Obviously he had missed something, and actually the mere thought of John being able to leave the flat without Sherlock noticing was rather unsettling. He felt his mind buzzing in a blur of confusing thoughts, thoughts that seemed unwilling to fall into any kind of order, to make any kind of sense.

In the end he decided that he needed to focus elsewhere in order to get his thoughts back in line. He did, after all, have an experiment waiting to be finished in the fridge. It was perhaps a bit early in the reaction-process to finish it, but it would have to do.

He opened the fridge and began to rummage around for the Petri dishes – they didn't seem to be located where he knew he had left them, or rather they were, but in front of them there was a note:

_Sherlock,_

_I assumed that this was the place you were most likely to find my note, since this is, as far as I recall, your ongoing experiment at the moment.  
I just wanted to tell you, in case you have forgotten, that I've gone to the surgery, and I wont be home until late, since I have an appointment with Lestrade when I get off.  
\- And I didn't want to wake you, since you rarely sleep more than a few hours. You know, you look so peaceful while asleep._

_Love,  
John_

This was unusual.

John didn't usually leave notes. In fact the only time he had ever left Sherlock a note had been…

Sherlock smiled vaguely, the only other time John had left him a note was the first time he had told Sherlock that he loved him. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all, and maybe John had forgotten about finding out Sherlock's reason.

Well in that case Sherlock saw no reason to speed up the process of John leaving him. If John had forgotten, there was no reason for Sherlock to bring it up again, he knew that after John's careless revelation of their… Of  _them_ , he would eventually lose John completely, but he wasn't going to speed up the process by telling John himself.

His stomach clenched as the thought of John leaving once again entered his mind.

And Sherlock knew he was being selfish for not telling John, but then again – either John had already thought of it himself, or when John eventually came to the realisation, the thought that Sherlock had come to the same realisation ages ago wouldn't even cross his mind.


	5. A beer and a talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**A beer and a talk  
** Lestrade's PoV

The pub was a bit crowded, but still there were room enough for John too when he came. And the volume of the pub guests weren't that bad either, so they would be able to have a normal conversation.

He was a bit nervous, because initially he had just thought this should be a friendly beer (and a talk, since he had some things on his mind that required a bit of perspective from someone like John). But after the rumours had begun circulating around the Yard, this was probably going to go down quite differently than expected.

John hadn't protested about the change of location, usually when they went out for a pint they would go to the pub closest to the Yard, but he had deemed it necessary to go somewhere else – just in case some drunken police officer would recognise John and make some sort of comment. Or if that bloody sergeant was there.

Greg scanned the room and the guests; it was a nice place actually, quite nice indeed. Perhaps they should consider visiting it more often – something that would allow for more free speech, since they shouldn't have to think about what other officers heard. Of course there were other things that they couldn't speak so loudly of, but that was okay.

If he really thought about it, he had had an ulterior motive for asking John to go for a pint, because John had been acting a little strange at the crime scene yesterday – though perhaps the reasons for that was now clear. And he still had a soft spot for the man. But that hardly seemed appropriate given the new information, if it were true that is.

"Can I get ya' anythin'?" the bartender snapped Greg out of his thoughts.

"Erm yeah, two pints of beer please."

"What kind?" the bartender almost barked out.

If the location had not been altered, this question would never have been asked, because the bartenders there  _knew_  what he usually bought, so it put him a little off,

"Your regular?" Greg said as he turned to watch the entrance, scouting for John.

The bartender sighed, clearly annoyed. Greg ignored it, he was to used to dealing with annoyed people trying to make some sort of declaration using non-verbal language – or verbal for that matter. Most of this experience stemmed from one person: Sherlock. But often, in retrospect, Greg did see why people who were a bit slower on the uptake would annoy someone like Sherlock – this meaning almost anyone. But this understanding at least helped him to tolerate Sherlock's at times bizarre behaviour. And thereby making him almost the only person in the Yard who could draw upon Sherlock's… gift he would almost call it. Dimmock was learning though.

He paid the grumpy bartender and found a table that gave him a clear view of the entrance so he would be able to catch John when he came in.

His phone vibrated loudly in his pocket, indicating a text-message. He didn't bother to retrieve it, it was probably some tedious thing relating to paperwork, and it would have to wait until his next scheduled shift on Sunday.

He eyed John who entered the pub and stood in the doorway scouting for him. When their eyes met John's face lit up in a smile, and Greg subconsciously straightened his back, gesturing to John that he had already bought two pints. John made his way to the table and began to sit down,

"Hi, looks like a nice place you've found." He said as he shrugged off his jacket and rested his arms on the table, closing his fingers around the pint.

"Yeah, I think so…" Greg said and took another look around the pub,

"Glad you could find it." He felt a little awkward, like it always felt when two people were talking together, both knowing something, both knowing that the other person probably knew as well, but neither really wanting, nor daring, to break the ice. But he thought he might as well say something; it was hardly a subject he felt he could ignore,

"Listen, John, the Yard is… Well I don't mean to pry…" He was interrupted by another vibration from his phone. John lifted an eyebrow, as if to suggest that he would be more than happy for the intrusion in their conversation. Greg ignored the phone again and regained his focus on John.

"Um… I think I know what you are going to ask," John said and shifted a little in his seat before he took a swig of his pint.

"Yeah, well… I thought it better to hear it from the horse's mouth you know," Greg said, feeling a little uneasy for bringing up the subject. Maybe it had been better to leave it alone after all.

"Of course, I should have guessed it would be running like a wildfire through the place," John said and gave him a vague smile,

"Um… Can I ask what you have heard?" he said and lowered his gaze.

"Well… You know how it is. And I would rather hear it from you than listen to what Anderson, or others, say on the matter."

John shot him a sceptical glance, and Greg decided to surrender,

"Fine, they talk about how you and… Sherlock were caught in an alleyway… Having, you know…" He strolled off a bit and made a small gesture with his hand as to indicate that he didn't feel comfortable having a conversation like this,

"They are having a… Well the officers are trying to guess whether… Whether you agreed to it or not… If he somehow convinced you… And which one of you were…" He couldn't really finish the sentences; this was getting too awkward. His phone vibrated again, and even though he now suspected something was up, and he would welcome the distraction, it didn't seem quite right to change his focus, he had begun the conversation after all,

"Alright, look, I'm just gonna come right out and ask: are you two involved, or was it something else that was going on in that alley, knowing the pair of you, the answer could be anything really." Greg felt a slight blush rise at the question. In any other context he would have been able to hold a professional distance to the question, but this was John.

"Well, yes, we were… Erm  _together_ in that alleyway. And I guess you can say that we're involved… It's…" John strolled off and gained a somewhat tormented expression on his face.

Greg took a swig of his pint and stared down in his now half-empty glass, not really knowing how to react. It wasn't exactly a surprise, but he realised that he had somehow hoped it wasn't really how things were,

"It's complicated? I could only imagine, it being Sherlock and all."

John huffed,

"Yeah, you can say that," He said as he smiled a little nervously and went back to what seemed like a staring contest between him and the pint.

"You okay?" Greg eyed him with concern, John was usually not easy to put off balance, but it seemed like Sherlock had managed to do so regardless.

He stretched out his arm across the table and rested his hand on the wrist of the hand across from him, which were currently clenching the glass, and squeezed it in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. John pulled his eyes from the pint and shot a small smile across the table at Greg,

"Yeah, I'm gonna…" John began but was interrupted by the vibrating sound from Greg's pocket. Greg withdrew his hand and grabbed his pint to finish it off, determined to keep ignoring his phone.

"Another?" He gestured at John while beginning to get up, and John emptied his pint as well,

"Please," He said as he handed the glass to Greg.

Not that Greg really wanted to deal with the grumpy bartender again, but after last time they were out, he was well aware that he owed at leas three or four rounds.

He handed the glasses to the man behind the bar,

"Two more please."

From the looks of it, the bartender didn't bother to even ask what he wanted. And soon two new pints were placed in front of him and he could get back to the table – and John who now looked as if in despair.

"Here you go," Greg said as he placed the new pint in front of him, trying his best to sound jolly. It probably didn't work too well.

"Thank you," John said and took a swig of the new pint,

"You know, I really do like him… I mean, I-I love him really, but I can't always tell if he genuinely wants me too," John said in a low voice.

Greg couldn't help himself,

"How long have the two of you…" he said and finished the sentence with a gesture.

"Couple of months now – four to be honest." He looked at Greg,

"Yeah, four months last Thursday," John said and took another swig, obviously to drag attention away from the slight blush that was creeping up his neck and onto his cheeks.

"Have you talked about it? I mean I know it's hardly a favourite subject to talk about, but sometimes it has to bee done," Greg said and took a swig, focusing his eyes on the yellow liquid inching towards his mouth.

When he lowered his glass, he saw an even deeper blush on John's neck and the other man shifted a little uncomfortable in his seat, tightened his lips and raised his eyebrows a bit. Greg assumed this mean not only  _'no'_  but also  _'I've tried, but he doesn't listen because he ignores me'_ – maybe this had been how his own ex-wife had looked when explaining to her (annoying) girlfriends about their relationship before it hit rock bottom.

"No, he just changes the subject – I think perhaps last night was the closest we've been to  _that_  conversation. It's like… I can't help but to feel that there's something he isn't telling me, because for God knows what reason, he actually doesn't want anyone to know about us," John finished with a sigh.

Greg furrowed his brow, this was John and Sherlock, and Sherlock had always in his own way wanted to show off John from the very beginning. So it sounded rather strange that Sherlock shouldn't want people finding out about the fact that this (very caring, very… Greg stopped himself) man wanted to be involved with him.

"That sounds a little strange, if it were…" Greg said and took a swig of the pint,

"He won't tell you why?" He looked curiously across the table at John.

"No, I even asked him if he was ashamed of me – that's truly the only reason I can find, but he says he's not." John shrugged.

Again Greg's phone vibrated, and John shot him another glance,

"Someone wants to get in touch with you," He said.

Greg sighed, John was right. He should probably take a look at the bloody instrument.

He retrieved it from his pocket and opened the inbox:

 **Sherlock Holmes – Message received 5:43 pm  
** Will you tell John to switch on his phone so he can receive my messages, incidentally I need him to answer me. – SH

 **Sherlock Holmes – Message received 5:56 pm  
** He should be at the pub by now, tell him to switch on his phone, or, if it is out of power, to use yours. – SH

 **Sherlock Holmes – Message received 6:08 pm  
** Are you ignoring me on purpose? Is John there? – SH

 **Sherlock Holmes – Message received 6:28 pm  
** You are ignoring me. – SH

 **Sherlock Holmes – Message received 6:41 pm  
** I need to reach John. – SH

"Is your phone off?" Greg shot John a glance.

"Yeah, it ran out of battery around lunch – why?" John said and looked quizzically at Greg.

"Because Sherlock needs to get a hold on you." Greg said as he passed the phone across the table and handed it to John, who got a funny expression on his face while reading the messages.

"For once, I think he can wait." John handed the phone back with a clearly annoyed expression and took another big swig of his pint.

"You sure?" Greg eyed the blond man sitting in front of him.

"Yeah, I'm sure," John said with just a hint of sadness to his voice.

"Listen, he obviously wants' you to come home." Greg tried.

"Yes, I figured."

"Honestly, why do you think he would be ashamed of you?" He tried to go back to the subject from before he had showed John the text-messages.

"I…" John sighed,

"Well he says he isn't, but honestly I don't really see any other reason… Unless it's something horrible or something really strange. I don't know…" He strolled off.

Greg eyed John with some concern; he looked almost defeated. He couldn't really see how John had gotten the idea that Sherlock would be ashamed of him, because really there was nothing to be ashamed of. But that weren't really what you told a mate, now was it.

"It's Sherlock, there's still a lot of things I still don't really know about him. And I…" John said and raised his glass again.

"And he won't talk about this?"

"No, he didn't really want to say anything… Well he did co… He woke me and wanted to talk later on last night, but honestly… I mean, I kind of have a… He seemed really sad, so at the moment that was enough. You know, sometimes – well often – he doesn't want to tell me what's bothering him if it's something emotional, so I just… Well I comfort him as best as I can." John lowered his gaze and looked at the almost empty pint.

Out of reflex Greg stretched out his hand again and gave John's wrist a small squeeze. John looked up at him with an insecure smile and emptied his pint without moving his arm away.

The phone on the table vibrated again with almost insisting intensity.


	6. Loneliness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> Okay, so this chapter is a bit (aka: a lot) different from anything else I've written. And if it appears to be an easy solution, it's not, I assure you. The reason for doing it this way will appear at the end of the chapter.

**Loneliness**  
Surveillance PoV

**Surveillance Report  
Add: M. Holmes  
Subject 1: C.D. Sherlock Holmes (ref. CD SH),  
Subject 2: M.D. John Watson (ref. MD JW)  
Surveillance level: 3**

**Surveillance Location: London, 221B Baker Street, drawing room.  
Surveillance equipment: surveillance camera installed in drawing room wall.**

**2137 hrs.**  
 **CD SH** plays the violin at the window.

 **MD JW**  enters drawing room, takes of his jacket.

 **CD SH** continues to play the violin; doesn't give any signs of noticing  **MD JW**.

 **MD JW**  exits the drawing room through the entrance to the kitchen.

 **CD SH** drops the violin in the black leather chair, moves back and continues to stare out the window.

No sign of movement,  **CD SH** continuously stares out the window.

 **2142 hrs.  
MD JW**  enters the drawing room with a mug, sits in the armchair located closest to the kitchen. Watches  **CD SH**.

 **CD SH** draws in a sharp breath, continues not to move or speak.

 **MD JW**  visibly tightens up.

 **CD SH** speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _You are drunk._

 **MD JW**  closes his eyes and speaks (soft tone of voice):  
 _We had a few pints, yes, but I'm only a bit tipsy._

 **CD SH** continues to stare out the window.

 **MD JW** draws in a breath and opens his eyes, looks at his mug.

 **2148 hrs.  
CD SH ** speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _Why didn't you turn on your phone?_

 **MD JW**  cringes his eyebrows, speaks (wondering tone of voice):  
 _How did you know it was off?_

 **CD SH**  speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _Really, it's basic technology John, I can see whether the texts I send are received or not._

 **MD JW** speaks (slightly annoyed tone of voice):  
 _Fine. My battery ran out, and I don't carry around a charger._

 **CD SH** speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _You could have answered using Lestrade's phone._

 **MD JW**  speaks (exhausted tone of voice):  
 _I just, I needed a break that's all – a bit of a time off because of yesterday. When are you gonna tell me what's going on Sherlock?_

 **MD JW** looks at the back of  **CD SH**.

 **CD SH**  speaks (quizzical tone of voice):  
 _With Lestrade?_

 **MD JW** speaks (slightly annoyed tone of voice):  
 _He's my friend you know, and you didn't answer my question._

 **CD SH**  huffs and speaks (dismissive tone of voice):  
 _Irrelevant._

 **MD JW**  speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _It's not irrelevant, you don't want people to know about us, and since you claim it's not because you are ashamed of me – then what is it about?_

 **CD SH** turns around and eyes  **MD JW**.

 **MD JW** stares back; draws in a breath.

 **CD SH** speaks (slightly threatening tone of voice):  
 _It's irrelevant now – people already know. Now tell me why you didn't answer my texts – or the ones I send Lestrade several hours ago._

 **CD SH** steps closer to  **MD JW** , puts his hands behind his back, stares down at  **MD JW**.

 **MD JW**  speaks (annoyed, sad tone of voice):  
 _It's not_ irrelevant _Sherlock, it… it hurts me._

 **CD SH**  opens his eyes wide, speaks (sad tone of voice):  
 _I…_

 **CD SH**  closes his eyes and cuts himself off; turns around and steps back to the window.

 **MD JW**  speaks (low, sad tone of voice):  
 _Sherlock I really want to be with you, but you are making it so hard._

 **CD SH** speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _What happened tonight?_

 **MD JW**  speaks (slightly agitated tone of voice):  
 _What's that question supposed to indicate Sherlock?_

 **CD SH**  doesn't answer immediately, lowers his head a bit.

 **CD SH** speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _I am simply asking you a question._

 **MD JW**  speaks (agitated tone of voice):  
 _You are accusing me of, of… After pushing me away and not even caring as to tell me why?_

 **CD SH** speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _I'm not accusing you of anything; I'm asking a simple question._

 **MD JW** raises his eyebrows slightly, speaks (sad tone of voice):  
 _But you're not, are you. How can you expect me to answer you truthfully when you won't tell me why you didn't want anyone to know about us – or why you don't want to discuss whether we are in a relationship or not?_

 **CD SH**  lifts his head up, speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _I don't… I find these kinds of 'talks' tedious; surely you must know that._

 **MD JW**  speaks (sad tone of voice):  
 _If you cared, I mean really cared about me, then you would agree to have such a conversation in some form or another. I'm not talking about the whole shebang here; I'm just talking about the mere basics. You don't want to have that talk because 'we' are just another one of your experiments. And for the same reason you didn't want anyone to know._

 **CD SH**  speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _You didn't answer my question._

 **MD JH**  cringes his eyebrows, speaks (confused tone of voice):  
 _What?_

 **CD SH**  speaks (sneering tone of voice):  
 _Tell me, are you deaf? You. Didn't. Answer. My. Question._

 **MD JW**  straightens his back, speaks (agitated tone of voice):  
 _And you haven't answered mine!_

 **CD SH**  speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _Fine, if you are going to be childish…_

 **MD JW**  interrupts  **CD SH** , speaks (agitated tone of voice):  
 _I'm being childish?_

 **CD SH** overhears  **MD JW** , speaks (loud, annoyed tone of voice):  
 _… if you are going to be childish, I will answer your questions: I am not going to tell you 'what's going on' because it is now irrelevant. As to the question of when I am going to tell you, the answer is covered by the answer to your first question._

 **MD JW**  speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _You are unbelievable you know that? And you didn't answer me on whether I am just an experiment._

 **CD SH**  speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _That was not a question; that was a statement._

 **MD JW**  speaks (body language and intonation suggesting repulsion):  
 _So I am – I am just another experiment then._

 **CD SH**  cringes his eyebrows, speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _Don't be ridicules._

 **MD JW** speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _Then tell me!_

 **CD SH**  speaks (harsh tone of voice):  
 _What_ happened  _tonight since you couldn't find the time to answer my texts._

 **MD JW**  speaks (low tone of voice):  
 _I knew you wanted me to come home._

 **CD SH**  speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _A simple answer would have sufficed._

 **MD JW**  speaks (low tone of voice):  
 _Nothing happened. We had a few pints and talked that's it. And I don't want to come home to someone giving me the third degree._

 **CD SH**  clenches his lips, says nothing, turns around and stares down at  **MD JW**

 **2203 hrs.  
** **CD SH**  walks over to stand in front of  **MD JW** , leans forward and places his arms on the armchair's on either side of  **MD JW**. Stares at  **MD JW** , leans further forward and pushes his mouth against the mouth of  **MD JW**.

 **MD JW**  does not reciprocate, pulls back and lifts up his hands to push  **CD SH** away.

 **CD SH**  straightens his back, looks down at  **MD JW**.

 **MD JW**  looks up at  **CD SH** , speaks (confused tone of voice):  
 _Sherlock, what are you doing?_

 **CD SH**  takes a step back, puts his hands behind his back. Continues to look down at  **MD JW** _ **.**_

 **CD SH**  cringes his eyebrows, speaks (slightly confused tone of voice):  
 _Why won't you kiss me?_

 **MD JW**  speaks (slightly annoyed tone of voice):  
 _What seriously? You just basically accused me of… And then you just expect me to want to kiss you?_

 **CD SH**  raises his eyebrows, speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _Why do you want to be with me?_

 **MD JW** raises his eyebrows, speaks (agitated tone of voice):  
 _Because I love you!_

 **CD SH**  speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _Then why were you with Lestrade tonight?_

 **MD JW**  speaks (confused, agitated tone of voice):  
 _What?_

 **CD SH**  speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _Instead of coming home._

 **MD JW**  cringes his eyebrows, speaks (confused tone of voice):  
 _I… What?_

 **CD SH**  speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _You obviously have been drinking, but you haven't been where you usually go – perhaps you went to his place?_

 **MD JW**  raises his eyebrows slightly, speaks (surprised tone of voice):  
 _How did you know we didn't go to…_

 **CD SH**  interrupts, speaks (monotonous tone of voice):  
 _Irrelevant._

 **CD SH**  turns around and picks up his violin, begins playing while looking out the window.

 **MD JW**  stands up, clenches his fists and stares at the back of  **CD SH**.

 **MD JW**  speaks (annoyed tone of voice):  
 _Fine, no we didn't go to the pub where we usually meet up._

 **CD SH**  drops the violin and bow, arms and instrument hanging down by his sides.

 **CD SH**  speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _Where did you go?_

 **MD JW**  cringes his eyebrows, speaks (confused tone of voice):  
 _Wait... Where did you say you think we went?_

 **CD SH**  cringes his eyebrows and pulls his lips tight.

 **CD SH**  speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _You went back to his place?_

 **MD JW**  clenches his lips, stares at the back of  **CD SH** , not speaking.

 **CD SH**  speaks (low, monotonous tone of voice):  
 _You did, didn't you._

 **CD SH**  pauses, draws in a breath.

 **MD JW** shows no sign of moving.

 **CD SH**  cringes his eyebrows slightly, speaks (whispering tone of voice):  
 _And you had… you were intimate?_

 **MD JW**  raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth, drawing in a breath.

 **CD SH**  begins playing his violin again.

 **MD JW**  takes a step forward, reaches out his left hand. Stops it mid air, leaves it there.

 **MD JW**  speaks (low, sad tone of voice):  
 _Sherlock, I…_

 **CD SH**  ignores  **MD JW** , continues to play the violin.

 **MD JW**  sighs and drops his hand.

 **MD JW**  speaks (low, sad tone of voice):  
 _I love you._

 **CD SH** 's bow skids on the strings, makes a sharp note.

 **CD SH** drops both arms and makes no further attempt to move.

 **MD JW**  continues to stand and watch the back of  **CD SH**.

 **CD SH**  appears to be crying [small line of tears across left cheek]. No other movement.

 **CD SH**  speaks (whispering tone of voice):  
 _Leave…_

 **MD JW**  speaks (pleading tone of voice):  
 _Sherlock, you don't honestl…_

 **CD SH**  interrupts (sneering tone of voice):  
 _Leave. Me. Alone._

 **MD JW**  speaks (sad tone of voice):  
 _Sherlock I wa…_

 **CD SH**  cuts off  **MD JW** , yells (agitated tone of voice):  
 _LEAVE!_

 **MD JW**  takes a step back, keeps looking at the back of  **CD SH**.

No further movement in the drawing room.

 **2244 hrs.  
** **MD JW** leaves the drawing room through the hallway door, closes it behind him.

 **CD SH** stares out the window, still appears to be crying.

No other movement.

 **2253 hrs.  
** **CD SH** puts down the violin and the bow on the black leather chair. Straightens up while looking intensely at something [presumably the wall].

 **CD SH** goes back to stare out the window. Moves slowly to his left, coming out of camera view.

No visible movement in the drawing room.

**2259 hrs.  
** **Surveillance camera in drawing room, location 221B Baker Street, disabled.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to show distance between the two of them without taking anyone's side or making this chapter overly emotional – I hope this wasn't (too) annoying to read.


	7. Disappearances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> This chapter does perhaps come off as a bit unfocused – it's intended.

**Disappearances**  
John's PoV

John walked slowly up the stairs towards his bedroom. His head was ringing with the empty sound of his whole world crashing down all around him. He knew he should have responded to Sherlock's texts, but he had been to affected by the reminder of what had happened the previous night and the conversation that followed. He knew he should have gone home to Sherlock, who had been displaying obvious signs of increasing desperation in his own way. He knew he should have just stayed away from the pub and Greg and… Pints.

As it happens, he had done all of the things he knew he shouldn't do if he didn't want to hurt Sherlock. But he had wanted to repay him in some twisted way for the pain he had caused with his words, or rather by his lack of words.

John had, however, never expected this outcome, and he didn't fully understand how Sherlock could be so insecure in their – by Sherlock's own wishes – undefined relationship to honestly think that John would be with anyone else than him.

The mere shock of that suggestion had left John speechless at first, and then... And then he had just given up.

John closed the door behind him and stood still in the (Sherlock)empty bedroom and exhaled slowly. This was horrible, and tonight he had a feeling that Sherlock wouldn't be creeping in at an odd hour and drape himself over John as he slept.

Slowly John took off his clothes and crept under the cold duvet. His thoughts about what had happened and what would probably happen chased each other, one more blurred and rapid than the one before. He tossed the duvet aside and went to find his phone, still lying dead in his pocket, and placed it in the charger next to the bed. Damn smart-phones and their relatively short-lived battery-time. For a short moment he wondered about how come he had actually never seen Sherlock recharge his phone.

He crept back under the duvet and pressed the power-button to turn it on. Then he stiffened. He could hear Sherlock moving around downstairs. For a brief moment he thought that perhaps he was coming up after all, realising that the thought of John sleeping with Greg was ridicules. But then John heard loud, rapid footsteps on the stairwell, going down, not up. And then the front door shut with a bang that surely would awaken Mrs. Hudson.

His phone hummed to indicate that it was now switched on and he should enter the four-digit password.

As if to taunt him, it immediately buzzed multiple times to indicate that he had in fact been send several messages when it had been shut down. It annoyed him that he weren't able to see exactly when the messages had been sent to him, because all the damned phone could tell him was when he himself had received them. They were all from Sherlock with one exception.

He opened the inbox and smiled vaguely at the message he had received before the phone went out. It was Sherlock recognising that he had indeed found and accepted the note (and its caring undertone) John had left him in the fridge.

The rest seemed increasingly desperate,

 **Sherlock – Message received 11:03 pm**  
What time do you get off work? - SH

 **Sherlock – Message received 11:03 pm**  
Cancel with Lestrade tonight. - SH

 **Sherlock – Message received 11:03 pm**  
John, turn on your phone. - SH

 **Sherlock – Message received 11:03 pm**  
Turn on you phone and come home. - SH

 **Sherlock – Message received 11:03 pm**  
Are you still mad at me? - SH

 **Sherlock – Message received 11:03 pm**  
You are still mad at me. - SH

John sighed.

It had definitely been the wrong decision not to contact Sherlock using Greg's phone. But again, he had needed the time off, and it was now evident that, despite of what Sherlock had claimed, he had wanted John to come home. Maybe he had wanted to tell what was going on, and John had missed the bus?

He stared at the messages for a while, not really knowing what to do. He should probably text Sherlock and tell him what he had failed to say in the drawing room: That he had not been  _intimate_  with Greg – and had not intentions of it either. He knew, off course, that Greg was interested. But that would not be a good idea to tell Sherlock. And it would definitely not be a good idea to tell Sherlock of the way the DI's fingers had dragged themselves over the back of John's hand on their way from their rest on his wrist back to the half-empty pint on which they belonged.

John tugged himself back under the duvet and tried to get some sleep.

Unfortunately his mind was racing, and all he could do was to toss and turn a bit, not able to find rest.

"Sod it." he said and tossed the duvet aside.

He threw on a jumper and a pair of pants, and out of habit grabbed his phone by the bed before he walked back down to the drawing room. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well watch some telly. He had heard that while watching television the brain was almost less active than it was during sleep anyway. Maybe he should force Sherlock to watch telly more often then.

There was nothing interesting in the bloody thing, so he ended up settling for a program about something called 'Space Lizards'. It sounded ridicules, and Sherlock would have hated the mere idea of someone thinking outer space lizards ruled the world and the politicians. On the other hand he probably would have ended up concluding that Mycroft was indeed a space lizard.

He missed Sherlock already. Maybe he should text him after all.

John tossed the phone into the cushion next to him and got up. He needed a cuppa.

He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, intent of watching the water boil and the steam mix up with the still air of the flat before it turned to nothing and disappeared – just like the way he felt everything he had thought they had was disappearing without him being able to do a damn thing to stop it.

John felt tears pressing at the corners of his eyes. He hated steam all of a sudden.

The kettle started to whistle and John snapped back to reality and drew out a mug and a teabag and poured the hot water over it, producing more of the gas he had now secretly made his sworn enemy. Bloody steam. Bloody Sherlock.

With heavy steps John walked back into the drawing room to place himself on the sofa once again.

He did his best to try and focus on the bloody space lizards again and absentmindedly took a swig of the tea. The result was a loud exclamation as he burned his tongue on the hot liquid. Bloody tea. Angrily he placed the mug on the coffee table and grabbed the phone again. He should text Sherlock.

Staring at the display that seemed to taunt him with all the messages he had received  _after_  Sherlock had left he felt at a loss as for what to write. He was still mad that Sherlock could ever think that he would cheat on him. And he was still mad that something was wrong and Sherlock wouldn't tell him.

He decided not to text Sherlock. He would, after all, soon come to the conclusion that his previous deductions about John's adultery was wrong and come home to apologise.

John threw the phone back in the cushion and absentmindedly watched the telly. He couldn't really find any peace and began tapping his fingers on his knee. He shot the phone a glance. Sherlock could at least text him.

What if he had gone out and bought some cocaine? Then it would be John's fault that he relapsed, just because he had refused to send him one little text.

He tightened his lips and looked back at the telly. Bloody space lizards he thought.

He felt restless. Perhaps this was how Sherlock felt when he hadn't got any cases to look at. Maybe he should ask Greg to get a pile of cold cases to keep in the flat just so he could feed them to Sherlock whenever they were out of fresh cases.

That reminded him that he should check the fridge for stolen parts of corpses – again.

John glanced at the phone once again with knitted eyebrows. He reached over and pressed a button and the screen lit up, revealing that it was now 11:36 pm. How time moved slowly. And Sherlock should have deduced that he was wrong by now. That he had indeed made a mistake.

Maybe he had figured out that he had made a mistake and was too ashamed to come back and apologise. Or maybe he was too proud to admit that he had indeed made a mistake.

John picked up the phone and began to type up a message. Then he deleted everything and stared at the phone a bit before remembering the other message he had received. He retrieved it with a few taps on the screen.

 **Mycroft Holmes – Message received 11:03 pm  
** I do hope you realise that every action produces a reaction. - MH

John's eyebrows slowly rose. That had to be one of the more peculiar messages he had ever received – and having received quite a lot of strange messages from Sherlock that was saying a lot.

What on earth was Mycroft referring to? If it had something to do with Greg then it made no sense at all, because he would know from his oh-so-dear CCTV that nothing had happened since they had been situated by the window while being at the pub.

Oh dear God John was sick of the cryptic Holmes-brothers by now.

Irritably he tossed the phone aside again and refocused on the telly. He felt his eyelids getting heavier and he struggled to keep awake so that he would know when Sherlock got back. He wrapped his arms around himself and stared intensely on the telly, but slowly sleep crept in and his head began to nod as consciousness sneaked it's way away from him.

He woke with a jolt, it was already light outside and the telly was now shoving something that made absolutely no sense to him. Looking around the drawing room he could tell that Sherlock probably hadn't been in there while he had been sleeping. He got up and headed towards Sherlock's bedroom,

"Sherlock, Sherlock are you home?" John called, which, admittedly, were stupid, and Sherlock would have told him so had he been there.

But there turned out to be no Sherlock in the entire flat.

John went back into the drawing room and picked up his phone. It was 7:23 am. He felt panic slowly rising as his heart started pounding in his chest. He should have texted Sherlock last night instead of being so childish and take it out on him, who presumably felt at a loss. Maybe something had happened to him? Sherlock was, after all an expert at doing exceptionally stupid things – apparently brilliance came with that side effect.

John tried to calm himself and focus on writing Sherlock a not too desperate-sounding message.

He pressed the send-button and stared at the phone. Now he could do nothing but to await hearing a sign of life from Sherlock. He dragged a hand across his face and felt a bit desperate. He had to admit that right now he would give anything to have Sherlock back at the flat. He would even stop trying to figure out what was bothering Sherlock and just accept things the way they were because he loved that bloody tall genius too much to do anything but to stay under any circumstances.


	8. London fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> TIMELINE: This runs parallel to chap. 7.

**London fog  
** Sherlock's PoV

Sherlock quickened his pace. The air was foggy; making it look as if someone was trying to boil all of London (obviously it had to be under low pressure, otherwise it couldn't be this cold and boiling) and the streetlights gave the night a yellowish shine. He took a deep breath and tried to convince himself that he wasn't heading where he knew he was heading.

He had to do  _something_  in order to get an outlet for the unwanted intensity of the feelings piling up in his stomach. He had truly believed that John had forgotten about the night before, but apparently he hadn't. And then he had the audacity to demand an explanation,  _the_  explanation, after returning from the so-called pints with Lestrade.

Why John couldn't just admit that he and Lestrade had been intimate were beyond him.

Sherlock knew they hadn't been to the pub across from the Yard, because when there had been no responses to his texts he had gone out to get John, he had needed John to be near him and confirm that for a short while John was still his. But he couldn't find him, so he had gone home while his brain had started to spin out of control.

Something had been nagging him about the conclusion he had reached about John and Lestrade. He knew that he hadn't been as observant as he usually were, he had felt blinded by sentiment, so he had needed to get John to tell him that he was wrong. But John hadn't said anything. And that was when Sherlock had known that despite the lack of obvious evidence he had been right.

At that exact second he had  _understood_  what lay behind crimes of passion. He had felt it running through his body like a hot fire wanting to consume him. That felling had indeed been unwanted. Nothing consumed him anymore except from the Work.

Perhaps Sally had been right all along, but for the wrong reasons. It wasn't going to be out of boredom. It was going to be out of affection. He hadn't even seen it coming himself.

His eyes flickered and he caught sight of one of Mycroft's cameras.

It didn't matter.

He had already admitted to himself that there was only one place in all of London he was going to end up when the building came into sight.

The front door was unlocked, which just confirmed that this was a neighbourhood where people believed the best about their neighbours and the passer-bys.

Which meant they were idiots.

Sherlock looked at the signs indicating who lived on what floor and found the name he was looking for on the second floor. Silently he slid up the stairwell and found himself in front of the door to the flat. He knew he should just turn around and leave but he couldn't make his feet change direction.

He chose to ignore the doorbell and knocked heavily on the wood instead. The sound of movement from inside the flat reached his ears as shuffling feet moved towards the door. Then it was unlocked and slowly opened to reveal the confused face of DI Lestrade, who clearly had just awoken from sleeping on the sofa.

Lestrade opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock cut him off in advance,

"Why didn't you answer my last text?" he asked bluntly.

Lestrade looked confused for a couple of seconds before answering,

"I didn't answer any of your texts."

Sherlock ignored him, he knew why the last text had went unanswered, because that had been the text asking Lestrade why he wouldn't let John write back to answer,

"You didn't answer my last text because you were busy with my… With John." Sherlock finally managed to say.

Lestrade looked even more confused than before, and Sherlock had to admit that he was doing a fine job in pretending not to know what they were talking about. Sherlock drew in a sharp breath and stepped closer to the door where Lestrade were now having too firm a grip on the wood for an innocent man. Their faces were only about five inches apart and Sherlock shot the DI a stern look.

"Sherlock! What are you rambling on about?" Lestrade said as he took a step back. Sherlock took the opportunity to follow him into the flat.

"I've seen the way you look at him… I  _know_  what you're thinking – you're an open book." He sneered at the DI who was now looking almost afraid.

"Look Sherlock…" Lestrade began as he pinched his nose,

"I don't know what you  _think_  happened, but I do know…"

Sherlock cut him off,

"I went out to find you, and you weren't where you usually go, so I  _know_ …" Sherlock stopped and scanned the small hallway, his mind unhelpfully producing images of John,  _his_  John, pinned against the wall with an overly enthusiastic DI kissing his neck an eliciting those wonderful moans that Sherlock previously had been sure he were the only one capable of eliciting. He drew in a sharp breath and clenched his lips. Lestrade were now looking almost horrified,  _as he should be_ Sherlock thought as he clenched his fists,

"I know you went  _here._ " He almost spat out the last word as he cringed his nose in distaste.

"Look…" Lestrade began as he lifted up his hands in a defensive posture,

"I don't know what's gotten into you, but I assure you I've done nothing – we just went to a different pub, because I thought some of the other officers might talk, and I didn't really think John would like to have some drunken yarder come up with a sharp remark."

Sherlock shot him a piercing glance, he had a hard time believing Lestrade, and he had a hard time dealing with his inner voice virtually screaming at him that he had no physical evidence, nothing to back up the clenching feeling in his stomach except from the clenching feeling in his stomach and his far too vivid imagination.

"If you don't believe me, just ask your brother – if he really controls the British government, then he sure as hell will know that John and I just went to another pub – and didn't leave together for that matter."

Sherlock felt his shoulders relax a little, if Lestrade dared to drag Mycroft into this, then perhaps it had all been something his mind had pieced together based on his fear and the awful dream he had had. He stared into the wall behind Lestrade as he realised that this, his behaviour, would probably only speed up the process of John leaving.

How could he, of all people, have been so stupid as to behave  _so_  irrational?

He turned to leave but was held back by a hand closing around his elbow,

"Listen Sherlock, why don't you come in and talk, you obviously need it." Lestrade said with something that almost sounded like compassion. He probably wouldn't have sounded so compassionate if he had known what Sherlock had been thinking as his feet had been guiding him to this particular location.

Sherlock didn't answer but just allowed himself to be guided to the sofa in the small drawing room.

Lestrade placed him on the sofa and went into the kitchen. He rummage around a bit before returning with two glasses and a bottle of Scotch and placed himself next to Sherlock as he put a glass in front of him.

Sherlock stared at the glass while the dark liquor was poured. He didn't drink, only on rare occasions when his nerves were a mess and he tried to keep himself from, or were unable to get, cocaine. Right now he would prefer cocaine – and to be alone. He would prefer to be alone and on drugs rather than sitting here in a drawing room clearly belonging to a man that hadn't fully managed to get his life back together after a messy divorce.

"You need it, now drink." Lestrade demanded as he raised his own glass to his lips and took a swig.

Sherlock stared at the glass in front of him. He couldn't go back home to John right now. And John hadn't texted.

Or called.

He was probably packing.

Sherlock wouldn't blame him if he were packing.

"Drink!" Lestrade insisted again and Sherlock grabbed the glass and emptied it in one gulp. Lestrade made a small, satisfied sound, reached for the bottle and filled the glass up again,

"Drink." He just said.

Sherlock didn't fully understand why the DI insisted on getting him drunk. Had it been drugs Sherlock would hardly have felt anything by now, but alcohol had a different effect on him than drugs, and he could already feel his fingers tingle a bit.

"Drink I said." Lestrade said as he took another swig of his (first) glass of Scotch.

Sherlock sighed but thought that he, at least out of guilt, should do as Lestrade said. He liked the man, and he trusted him. So he had perhaps been overreacting when he had assumed that he had been with John.

"But you… I know you want him." Sherlock said – more to the glass in his hand than to Lestrade.

"Yes… I'm not going to lie to you, I do like him, but I care about both of you… And, well it is rather obvious, especially now that I know you're together, that you are the only one he really wants." Lestrade said and took another swig,

"Now drink!"

Sherlock obeyed and emptied his second glass. Lestrade retrieved the bottle once again and filled the glass.

"Why are you trying to get me drunk?" Sherlock shot Lestrade a suspicious glance.

"Because I think you need to talk, and I don't think you are going to do it completely voluntarily."

Sherlock shot the glass an evil look. He didn't  _need_  to talk, and he definitely didn't like to do it this way,

"I don't need to…" Sherlock began. Lestrade had said something that he needed him to clarify,

"You said I'm the only one John wants – why does he want me?" Sherlock cringed his eyebrows as he sat the glass down and began to take of his coat. It was getting too warm.

Lestrade sighed as if Sherlock had asked a stupid question,

"Look you give him what he needs, he loves you, he told me so himself tonight. And I'm guessing he gives you what you need too. Now drink." Lestrade said as he filled up his own glass.

Sherlock did as demanded and emptied the third glass. He felt the world beginning to spin a little; definitely not as comfortable as cocaine that cleared his mind and made him see the world sharply defined. It all now gotten a bit blurred and he had a hard time focusing.

Lestrade filled up his glass again,

"Let me ask you: How do you  _feel_  about John?" Lestrade said, and Sherlock could feel the DI's eyes almost ripping him apart. It was uncomfortable.

"I lo… I care for John very much." Sherlock said as he tried making the content of his glass evaporate just by staring at it. Unfortunately it didn't seem to work. Maybe the air pressure was too high?

"You can't say it, can you? That you love him I mean." Lestrade said as he gestured that Sherlock should drink again.

"No, I can't, not because I don't want to, but if I tell him  _that_  then I've exposed myself completely, then I really can loose him…" Sherlock said and took a swig of the fourth glass of Scotch. He felt the world go even fuzzier around the edges.

"But he has told you, haven the?" Lestrade said sounding almost worried.

"Yes…" Sherlock felt ridicules. He emptied the rest of his glass and once again Lestrade more than eagerly filled it up,

"What have you said when he has told you?" he said as he poured himself a new drink.

"I… Is that important? I think he knows anyway." Sherlock glanced at Lestrade, who got a puzzled look on his face and sighed,

"Of course it's important Sherlock." He said and raised his eyebrows as if to underline his statement.

Sherlock tried to think; John didn't really say it that often. He looked like he wanted to several times a day, and Sherlock would, if he were truly honest, have liked it if he did indeed say it several times a day,

"Well, he often tells me during or right after…"

Lestrade cut him off,

"Thanks, that's a bit too much information you know." He said sounding a bit… annoyed and emptied his glass. Sherlock didn't really understand why that was something to be annoyed about,

"I don't see the problem." He said and looked at his glass.

Lestrade sighed,

"No I guess you don't."

Sherlock clenched his lips; he didn't like this tingling, fuzzy feeling in the slightest,

"It's all about the children, Lestrade, the children." He finally said, more to the glass in his hand than to the DI sitting next to him.

Lestrade looked bewildered,

"What on earth are you talking about Sherlock?"

Really, it shouldn't be that hard to understand, but on the other hand Sherlock was used to being surrounded by idiots, and even Lestrade was an idiot, albeit a cleaver idiot at times,

"The children that don't exist!" Sherlock almost shouted as he made a wild gesture with both arms.

Lestrade moved back a bit as if to avoid getting slammed in the face,

"You're clearly drunk out of your mind." He said sounding a bit concerned.

Sherlock shot him a glance that he hoped would look like one of his usual  _'you are just stating the obvious'_ -glances,

"Yes of course I am, I rarely drink, and I've now had at least half a bottle of Scotch."

Lestrade chuckled a little,

"Oh God you're pissed if you think that."

Sherlock felt annoyed, he  _was_  drunk but he were still able to use his eyes and to keep track of what he had been drinking,

"What? I can  _see_ the bottle right there." He said and pointed vaguely in the direction of the Scotch on the table.

"Yes, but you should know that it was 4/5 full when I brought it in, and we have almost split what's been drunk."

Sherlock looked sceptically at the annoyingly supercilious DI,

"What are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything Sherlock, I'm telling you that you  _personally_ have drunk 3/20 part of the entire bottle." Lestrade chuckled again; it was annoying,

"It doesn't suit you." Sherlock stated flatly.

"What doesn't?" Lestrade looked at him smiling.

"Thinking… Well thinking while drunk to be exact… Are you always drunk when you go to work? Because that would explain a lot." Sherlock said doing his best to focus on Lestrade.

"Oookay I think it's time for you to go to bed – you can sleep on my sofa." Lestrade said as he got up,

"I'll find you a pillow. There's a blanket over there." He pointed at a chair and Sherlock got up to retrieve it as his world began to spin again. He plunged back into the sofa clinging on to the blanket for dear life.

Lestrade lifted an eyebrow and considered something for a moment before leaving the drawing room and returning a few seconds later with a pillow,

"Here you go. If you're going to be sick, the bathroom is over there." He said as he pointed in the direction of a door that had clearly seen better days.

Sherlock huffed and dragged the blanket over himself. If he squeezed his eyes hard enough he could pretend he were back at Baker Street and that John,  _his_  John, would come down any minute now and force him to get upstairs to sleep in a proper bed. Sherlock sighed; he missed his John, his warm, caring John who always loved him, well until tonight that was.

"Goodnight then." Lestrade said and punctured the fine soap bubble Sherlock had just carefully built. Sherlock ignored him and he turned out the lights and left the room without saying anything else.

Sherlock's world kept spinning a bit and he felt nauseous, He hated being drunk, it dulled the senses and the intellect.

He hadn't realised that he had fallen into a deep, heavy sleep until the phone vibrating in his pocket abruptly awakened him. He suddenly became more aware of his head then he cared to as it was pounding so hard that he for once wished he didn't have a brain.

He retrieved the phone with some difficulty and looked at the screen. His heart jumped when he saw it was from John, his-until-he-read-the-text John. He gulped, this was probably a bit not good, and opened the message,

 **John Watson –** **Message received 7:25 am** **  
**Sherlock I didn't sleep with Greg, I'm sorry I didn't just tell you, but I was shocked that you could even think that. I love you, please come home, I'm worried about you. - JW

Sherlock blinked at the screen, this he had not expected. To be honest, it probably wasn't John who should do most of the apologising.

He placed the phone on the table on front of him and tried to get his brain up to speed with reality so he could figure out what to answer.


	9. Dead giveaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> Beta: many thankful thoughts goes to CowMow from FF.net, who has beta'ed this chapter.

**Dead giveaway**  
John's PoV

John began pacing around the drawing room floor. Well perhaps 'began' was the wrong word choice, because he hadn't  _just_  begun pacing the already knot-bare carpet. It was now 11:14 am and he had been doing this for almost an hour trying to fight the urge to call Sherlock's phone – again.

He nearly smiled at his own actions – it was Sherlock, not he, who always seemed to find some sort of peace in walking around in circles on the carpet. But he was too worried for the smile to be anything but a muscle movement at the corners of his lips.

He still hadn't heard from Sherlock, not a single word _,_  and he was seriously considering phoning Mycroft. But logic prevailed, because if something had happened to Sherlock it would probably be Mycroft phoning John to inform him, not John phoning the (almost) all-knowing Mycroft to tell him that his brother was missing.

John's phone suddenly rang, and he rushed to grab it from the sofa with a pounding heart, almost knocking the coffee table over in his rush to reach it. His first thought was that it was Mycroft, telling him something really bad had happened, but Mycroft wouldn't call, he would prefer to come by and tell John in person. It was Sherlock, then, returning his call, but before looking at the screen he realised it probably  _wasn't_  him, because he never called, he always texted – unless it was a seriously bad situation he had gotten himself into, but even then he would probably prefer to text.

He looked at the display that told him it wasn't any of the Holmes-brothers. For a second he felt relieved, but then a wave of concern rushed over him, twisting his guts, it was Greg who was calling him,

"Hi Greg, listen now is not really a good time," John said as soon as he answered the phone.

"I just thought you'd like to know that Sherlock has just left," Greg's voice came a bit hoarse from the other end of the line.

John felt a bit confused and worried. Considering the mood Sherlock had been in last night, this didn't sound good.

"What? He stopped by you this morning?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line, as if Greg was thinking about how to answer that, then he took in an audible breath,

"He came by last night, rather agitated. Jesus, John, he thought… Well, we had a couple of Scotch – he really can't hold his liquor – and he began talking nonsense, so I just put him to sleep on the sofa."

John sighed of relief; at least it didn't sound like Sherlock had gone and done something tremendously stupid.

"Where has he run off to then?" He couldn't help but feeling pretty concerned.

"I'm not sure to be honest. He was muttering to himself when he left. Couldn't quite catch it, sorry," Greg said finishing with a sigh.

"Sounds like him," John said while his mind began racing, trying to figure out where on earth Sherlock had gone off to.

"Yeah, yeah it does. I told him he should go home to you, you know… But I thought you'd like to know he was here anyway, since I didn't get the feeling he had told you."

"No, he hadn't, I appreciate that you called. Look, erm, can I phone you back later?"

"Yeah, sure! Just… don't be too hard on him when he gets back," Greg said, sounding a bit apologetic for Sherlock's behaviour.

"I won't, trust me. Talk to you later," John greeted his friend absent-minded.

"Good luck, John!"

John hung up and turned to look out the window, clenching his phone until his knuckles were white. Where could Sherlock have gone to? And what had he been thinking, visiting Greg of all people?

He tried to focus and began typing Sherlock another message to ask him where he was.

After ten minutes no reply had come, and John began feeling nervous again. At least  _now_ Sherlock must have learned there had been nothing between him and Greg, mustn't he?

He ended up deciding on making himself a cuppa just to pass the time – no one had ever answered a text faster if the sender was staring at the phone, waiting for an answer to arrive. And John really wasn't about to spend several minutes staring at his; he wasn't stupid. Besides, Sherlock would have told him that staring at the phone didn't change anything anyway.

As he stood staring at the kettle to make it boil faster – which didn't work either – he was so lost in his own blank thoughts that he didn't hear steps coming up the stairs.

"Yoo-hoo!" Mrs. Hudson called out from the opening into the kitchen, knocking softly on the doorpost.

John was startled out of his reverie, and he nearly dropped the kettle he had just picked up.

"Oh, didn't mean to frighten you dear," Mrs. Hudson said sympathetically and looked around the kitchen. "Where's Sherlock? Out of the door already, without you?"

"Can I get you a cuppa Mrs. Hudson?" John turned to retrieve two cups with his free hand just to avoid her inquisitive expression and the question.

"Oh no dear," she said. John stopped mid-motion and turned around again to look at her.

"I'm just popping out to meet an old friend of mine, do you remember…" She chattered on and John zoned out, for the life of him he wasn't able to follow anything she said, but he did his best to smile and nod at the appropriate time.

"John, are you okay?" Mrs. Hudson's concerned voice cut through to him and he realised he had been standing holding the kettle like it was his dearest belonging.

"Yes, yes, I'm perfectly fine Mrs. Hudson, nothing to worry about," he said, flashing her a vague smile.

"Are you sure dear?" She looked him up and down for a second, and then her face relaxed. John felt the unnoticed tension in his shoulders ease up: she would leave him alone in a matter of seconds, and then he could go back to staring at the phone now lying on the kitchen table. He remembered he should turn the volume up to its maximum.

"You know, sometimes he just needs a bit of time," Mrs. Hudson said in a tone of voice that was meant to be comforting.

John raised his eyebrows. Sometimes Mrs. Hudson was worse than his own mother, who had always been able to see right through him, knowing when he had as much as thought about kissing a girl. Even if he had been nowhere near her when the thought had occurred, she always knew next time she saw him. It would seem that Mrs. Hudson was even more capable of seeing right through things – him, in this matter– even though she appeared to be just a confused elderly lady most of the time.

John sighed; this was not a conversation he was willing to have with his landlady, no matter how involved in their lives she might be.

"I'm sorry, erm, he just popped out a couple of hours ago to go and do… something," he said vaguely and clenched his lips together.

"I'm sure he'll come around dear, after all you're all he cares about – oh don't give me that startled look, I might not be as young as the two of you, but I've had my fun. I know what's going on in my own house." She finished her kind reprimand with a smile. John gulped and his jaw slowly dropped in realisation that she _knew._ He wondered how long she had known – and how on earth she had managed to keep her knowledge hidden from them. Or at least hidden from him.

John decided to give up pretending not to know what she was talking about. This seemed to be a conversation he couldn't avoid having, no matter what he did. And after all the entire Yard knew by now, so this didn't really make a difference.

"He left late last night, haven't heard from him since…" he sighed as he placed the kettle on the countertop. He couldn't really focus enough to make a cup of tea anymore, not with his landlady insisting on talking about him and Sherlock. And besides, he didn't want to get scolded by the hot water on top of everything else. He pinched the bridge of his nose; he really just wanted Sherlock to come back right this instant.

"I know dear, I heard the front door slam." She looked at him with motherly concern.

"I… Yes, well, apparently he went to Lestrade's place and slept on his sofa."

"Oh dear, Sherlock sleeping… He must've been exhausted," she said softly, and drew out a chair from the kitchen table and placed herself in it. She didn't really look to John like someone who was in a hurry to meet anyone.

"Yeah… The thing is, I don't have a clue about what's going on, he's acting like he doesn't want anyone to know about us. Sometimes I even wonder whether he wants to admit to himself that we are… together, and then, suddenly, he goes all jealous on me… I've got no idea what he wants from me," John admitted sadly and drew out the other chair to seat himself opposite of Mrs. Hudson. He might as well sit down if they were going to talk about this.

"I know he really wants to be with you – haven't you noticed that?" she said with what looked like the beginning of a better-knowing smile.

"What do you mean?" John asked; he had the feeling that she had noticed something he hadn't.

"The fridge," she said and pointed at it as to make sure they were both talking about the same thing.

"What about it?" John looked at her quizzically. He hadn't noticed anything weird about it. He was still the one mainly doing the shopping and the occasional cooking. Much to his pleasure he hadn't stumbled upon any body parts just waiting to either give him a heart attack or take away his appetite lately.

"Surely you have noticed the almost alarming lack of dismembered dead people in the fridge dear?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well yes, I've noticed that it looks more like a fridge now than something from a horror movie," he hesitantly answered, still not really getting what she was pointing out.

But then it hit him.

"So, you're saying he's been keeping body parts out of the fridge because he cares?" John was still slightly sceptical, because as much as he had gotten used to the body parts, he had just thought that Sherlock had finally realised the real point of a kitchen refrigerator.

"No pun intended, but it's a dead giveaway, dear. You, of all people, should know that Sherlock doesn't want to, nor is particularly capable of adjusting his behaviour to other people."

John looked at her for a couple of seconds, feeling slightly stunned. He did see her point, but the thought hadn't even crossed his mind. Apparently, Sherlock wasn't going to be easy to completely figure out, no matter what the nature of their relation was.

"But how can you be sure that it's not just because someone has stopped him?" This was, in John's opinion, a more plausible cause, even though Sherlock would probably have figured out a way around a minor obstacle like that a long time ago.

"Because he told me so. When I said that I was glad he'd stopped putting those awful things in your fridge, he simply gave me one of those stares, and said that you didn't like them. So you see, no one is stopping him from doing it except you. And you hadn't complained about it for ages when he suddenly decided to stop putting them in your fridge," Mrs. Hudson gave him a wide smile and reached out a hand to pat John on his arm.

John opened his mouth to say something; just anything would do, but his phone saved him when it started ringing.

He snatched it quickly from the table, his heart skipped a beat and he almost froze.

The display told him it was Sherlock.

This didn't seem like a good sign, nervously he bit his lower lip and blinked. He should definitely answer it; something was probably really, really wrong.

His heart started to race as if it wanted to escape his chest and he pressed to answer the call.

"Sherlock, where…" John began but was cut off.

"Hi, it's – it's Molly. Listen John, Sherlock's here, a-at the morgue, at Bart's I mean. He's acting, well he's acting a bit strange, even for Sherlock I mean. I thought… I thought maybe you could come and get him?" Molly sounded a bit jittery, more than usual.

"Molly, why… Why do you have Sherlock's phone?" John began to panic a bit. Sherlock tended to use other peoples phones, but he didn't really make a habit out of borrowing his own phone to others.

"Well, he kind of forgot it in the cold store, you know where we keep the bodies before and after we do the autopsy, and I wanted to return it to him, but he was just talking to himself and walking around in circles ignoring me. More than usual I mean, and I-I didn't really know what to do, so I called you." She almost sounded apologetic.

She continued, "I think it'd be best if you came and got him – he won't really listen to me when I try and talk to him, but you know, he never really does, but still he is acting… Just come and get him – I think he needs you." The last part she added with a slight hint of sadness. John felt sorry for her, she was, after all, a sweet girl, and still so very fond of Sherlock. She would probably be devastated when she heard that the rumours about them were true.

"Okay sure, I'm on my way, just keep an eye on him, and call me if he tries to leave."

"Okay, I will." With that she hung up.

John sighed; he really needed to know what was going on now. Things couldn't go on like this.

"Is Sherlock okay?" Mrs. Hudson made her presence known once again. "Not that I listened in, but it was hard to avoid hearing what with you being just on the opposite side of the table," she said a bit defensively.

"Doesn't sound like it, look I'm sorry, but I have to go and get him from Bart's," John said as he stood up and began to move towards the hallway.

"No, it's fine; you hurry up and get him home safely. That'd do both of you good." She got up and smiled as she patted him on the back.

John threw on his jacket and hurried down the stairs. The front door closed behind him and he felt himself standing amongst random passer-bys who had no idea that he had the feeling his entire world had been turned upside-down more than once just within the last few days.

He began to try hailing a cab, but he had to admit that Sherlock's magic abilities to make one appear just as he needed it hadn't exactly rubbed off.


	10. Meaning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> Beta: many thankful thoughts goes to CowMow from FF.net, who has beta'ed this chapter.

**Meaning**  
John's PoV

John rushed down the empty corridor, but before he had the entrance to the morgue within eyesight, he bumped into Molly, who was looking a bit flustered.

"Molly, are you okay?" he asked as an automatic reaction while doing his best to put on a worried face for her, right now he only cared about finding Sherlock.

"No… Yeah, I'm, I'm fine, it's just – he kind of yelled at me and told me I shouldn't try anything – I didn't really know  _what_  he meant so I asked him, and he just pointed at me, and he yelled 'John', just 'John'," she said, wide-eyed, staring at John for a couple of seconds before looking away, frowning and clenching her lips tightly, looking like her world was coming down upon her,

"Look I've got… I've got to go. Good luck with him, John." She began to walk briskly down the corridor, away from the morgue and the cause of her upset state, Sherlock.

He followed her with his eyes for a couple of seconds; it really was a shame that she let Sherlock get to her so easily sometimes. He sighed and turned to close the last distance between himself and the morgue with a heavy feeling in his stomach.

John pushed the swing doors open and carefully stepped inside the cool room. Sherlock's frame was an unmistakable, dark presence in the room; he had his back turned towards the door and was hunched over a metal slab that appeared to be empty. His arms were spread out wide and his hands had a firm grip at the metal frame, making his already pale knuckles even whiter. It appeared to John that Sherlock was having a strange staring contest with the cold metal.

John didn't say anything as he entered; he just walked slowly towards Sherlock and stopped behind him, just out of arms reach. He felt a bit too tempted to reach out and touch Sherlock to trust himself, and he wasn't really sure Sherlock wanted him to touch him right now.

"You." The monotonous voice rang out in the otherwise silent, cool room that only seemed to preserve the sound of the word, making it linger. John felt a shiver run down his back.

He inhaled sharply and clenched his lips in determination. He had no idea what was going on inside Sherlock's head, but he had the distinct feeling that this would probably be his only chance to get him to talk – and get him to go home with him.

"Yes, me," he answered quietly, remaining stock-still. He figured that if he said nothing else, Sherlock would eventually tell him what was going on, since he seemed to be in one of those states where only time and patience could drag out his thoughts.

John could see Sherlock's knuckles turn even whiter as he tightened his grip on the metal frame. Then he slowly straightened his back and let go of the table to lock his hands behind his back instead. He still didn't turn around to look at John when he spoke again,

"You are going to leave me," he said in a strained voice, revealing to John that he was struggling to keep control over what was going on inside of him.

"You know I wasn't with Lestrade," John said with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. It seemed improbable that this would still be something Sherlock was concerned about, but John had to be sure, "Don't you?"

"I know," Sherlock said as he turned his head just enough for John to be sure he was being observed from the corner of the detective's right eye. It still felt like being stripped in a not-so-pleasant way.

"Then you have to explain to me  _why_  I'm going to leave you, because, to be honest, I don't see a bloody reason," John said, feeling frustrated and worried at the same time. What on earth had Sherlock been thinking – or doing – since he now insisted that John would just leave him?

Sherlock turned his head back to look straight ahead again, away from John, and said in a low, monotonous voice, "I have realised you want children."

John's jaw dropped in disbelief. He had no idea what this had to do with anything – and besides, he had never talked about it with Sherlock, so it seemed a little out of place to bring it up now.

"Why would that mean I would want to leave you? This doesn't make any sense." He cringed his eyebrows and looked at Sherlock's back as if he could force him to turn around by mere willpower,

"If you're scared that I'll leave you, why didn't you want anyone to know about us?" John tentatively took a step forward, pushed by an overwhelming feeling of wanting to reach out a hand and let it slide down Sherlock's back, feeling the joints of his spine through the blazer. He barely controlled the impulse.

"It's obvious I should think, even for someone like you," Sherlock sneered.

John closed his eyes for a short second and decided to ignore it,

"Explain it to me anyway," he said in a soft, comforting voice.

"Fine." Sherlock sighed and tightened the grip his hands had on each other behind his back, "You are not getting any younger. You want children, preferably before you get too old. So, eventually, you are going to find some tedious woman whom you will deem adequate to be the mother of your children. Since you are a man of honour, you are going to marry her and move out of  _our_  flat to live in domestic bliss with babies and flowers and home-cooked meals…"

Sherlock stopped to draw in a sharp breath and John took the opportunity to interrupt,

"Sherlock, this…" He didn't get the chance to say anything else before Sherlock spoke again, as if John had said nothing, apparently he wasn't done,

"If no one knows, or rather, had they still not known about us, then at least I could still see you, have you in my life. People tend to object to their spouses continuing to befriend their ex-lovers, and since you are so  _very_  considerate of other people's feelings, you would oblige your wife's wishes and stop seeing me if she found out that you and I had been involved."

Sherlock took in a breath of air and turned around to look at John, it was clear that he was struggling to keep up his mask of indifference. Only his eyes betrayed him. To John he looked like someone searching to find confirmation, but fearing it at the same time.

John knitted his eyebrows and sighed. "We haven't talked about children! Where does all of this nonsense come from?" He looked quizzically at Sherlock.

"You are the type of person who would want children, so it wasn't too hard to figure out – especially since you haven't talked about it with me," Sherlock said as he put his hands in his pockets and clenched his lips.

"Sherlock, I haven't talked to you about children since you haven't even been willing to discuss whether we are a couple or not. Of course I want a child," John said and inhaled deeply, his heart was pounding.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows in a knowing gesture. Evidently he assumed he knew what was coming next, but John ignored this and continued quickly,

"I would love to raise a child with  _you_." John took another step towards Sherlock while he looked him straight in the eyes and tried his best to let Sherlock know he was being honest and not just trying to comfort him with a nice, little white lie.

Sherlock parted his lips slightly as if to speak, but stopped mid-motion and gained a stunned expression before collecting himself slightly,

"I wouldn't be fit as a father, you know." He looked dead serious.

John couldn't help but to smile a little,

"Well, I think you're wrong."

The tall, dark-haired man in front of him looked even more bewildered,

"But you would want children that are genetically your own."

John shot him a slightly amused smile; he had no idea how on earth Sherlock had come up with all of this,

"What gave you that idea?"

Sherlock sighed, and looked at John with an expression of exasperation that more or less said  _'why am I surrounded by_ _idiots'_ ,

"Since you are a doctor you know the Darwinian reasons. And besides, Harry means a lot to you, and even though she is a drunk and makes selfish decisions you don't agree with, you still care for her. That has to be because she's your blood… If she wasn't she would probably not bother you so much – of course you would still care, you are a person who cares… But not that much." Sherlock sighed and closed his eyes briefly before fixing his gaze upon John once again.

John blinked at him a couple of times; he didn't quite understand how Sherlock, of all people, could have jumped from these facts to the conclusion he had reached.

"Sometimes you can be magnificently stupid, you know," John sighed and couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and glared at John who had moved closer so that he was now standing only inches from the taller man.

John inhaled slowly, trying to take in all of Sherlock at once. He had missed him terribly, and he smiled at the feeling of finally being able to stand so close to him again after the last, horrible, twenty-four hours or so.

"Do you remember what you told me the second time we met, after explaining how you deduced all that stuff about me at the lab?" John looked at him expectantly.

The man in front of John gained a confused expression on his face,

"Yes, all of it, but is it important in this context?" Sherlock asked as if the input clearly didn't match the models he had used to constructing the machinery of 'how to figure out John and I' in his head, "John, I really don't see the relevance here," he added hesitantly.

John sighed and a wide smile flashed across his face; Sherlock could really be heavy on the uptake on certain things, and right now it would seem that his so-called hard-drive was over-crowded with his own wrong assumptions.

"Of course you don't; one of the things you told me was that you hardly get everything right the first time."

Sherlock stared at him, and John could practically see realisation dawn in the eyes of the detective.

"Oh…" Sherlock said quietly as he opened his eyes wide.

"Yes. 'Oh'," John nodded, "Even though I  _do_  see  _why_  you came to that conclusion, I don't see  _how_  – we've never talked about children, or adoption or anything in that matter actually, so even  _you_  should know that the basis for your 'realisation', as you call it, is faulty in its use of many of the facts, and lacks important key components. If this had been a scientific postulate you would have laughed at it and then started to rant at me about how magnificently idiotic and presumptuous the scientist had been."

John couldn't help himself anymore, and gingerly placed his hands upon the hips of the detective, feeling the body heat travelling from the slim figure underneath the cool fabric into the palms of his own hands.

Sherlock still looked a bit sceptical, and seemed almost ignorant of John's closeness.

"I… Are you being serious?"

"Yes, very," John said as he hid his smile by gaining a serious look on his face. After all, he didn't want to trigger any more doubts Sherlock might have about what he was saying by smiling.

"Why haven't you mentioned this before?" Sherlock asked, a frown crinkling his forehead.

John couldn't help but to laugh a little at his friend. God, how he loved being able to catch Sherlock being this daft, it was endearing to be honest, even though Sherlock probably wouldn't see it that way.

"Seriously Sherlock, as I said: you didn't even want to discuss whether we were an actual couple or not – and you expect me to start a conversation like  _that_?" John raised his eyebrows as he spoke, but he couldn't help letting his thumbs caress Sherlock's hips in a soothing manner at the same time.

Sherlock turned his head slightly and his eyes fixed upon an undefined point somewhere behind John.

"I do see your point," he clenched his lips and John could see the muscles in his jaw tighten a bit. Evidently, being wrong, even in something like this, wasn't really something Sherlock enjoyed.

John felt he had to clarify a few things; just to make sure Sherlock didn't come up with a new, just-as-crazy theory as to why their relationship – John thought he could call it that now – was doomed.

He gently cupped Sherlock's cheek with his left hand and turned his head back to make his attention focused on him and what he was saying,

"Besides, now that we  _are_  talking about the subject: I do not believe that genes are the most important thing when it comes to caring for a child – and the surroundings in which a child is raised are equally, if not more, important to the adult outcome of said child. You know they did a study once, where it turned out that people who have had a happy childhood actually looks slightly different from people who hadn't, they had made computer-simulated pictures – you know those where a lot of faces are mixed together to create an average face, and the two faces they ended up with were almost similar, but small things made the faces look quite differently, and the face that were the sum of people with a happy childhood were the most attractive. And as I said, I think you will be a good father." John smiled up at Sherlock and dropped his hand back to his hip.

"You know that could just be suggestion, since you read the article, or the text that went with the pictures, and didn't look at the pictures beforehand"

Typically Sherlock, John thought.

"Maybe, but still… It was just an example. What I'm basically saying is that when the time comes, I think we could be just as good parents and have just as happy a child as anyone else. And honestly, I would eventually want to raise a child with you."

Sherlock stared at him in silence for a while, and John had the distinct feeling he was replaying their entire conversation and considering something in it he had stumbled across. He then bit his lower lip and said, in a low voice,

"Children."

John blinked; he thought they had covered the subject well enough by now.

"What?" He stared at Sherlock, who in return lifted his eyebrows as if to indicate that John was the one being slow.

"You said 'child', it should be 'children'. I think it's healthier for a child to grow up with siblings… Unless said sibling is Mycroft, of course." The corners of Sherlock's lips twitched, hinting the beginning of a smile.

John gave Sherlock's hips a gentle squeeze.

"And now you even manage to drag your brother into this."

"Obviously, I grew up with him," Sherlock stated matter-of-factly, shrugging slightly.

"Fine, child _ren_  it is then," John smiled as he raised himself up on his toes and looked Sherlock in the eyes.

Sherlock wasn't late to catch the hint and closed the gap between their lips. He placed his hands on the small of John's back, pulling them closer together. His lips were careful at first, as if searching for permission. John felt the warmth travel all the way down to his stomach. He kissed back gently, and he couldn't help but to smile into the kiss.

John felt Sherlock getting more eager as one of the taller man's hands travelled up to his jaw, caressing it a little, before his slender fingers found their way to the back of John's head and buried themselves in the short hair they found, pushing their bodies, if possible, closer together and deepening the kiss. John allowed his own hands to find Sherlock's soft, dark curls and entangle his fingers in them.

"Oh!" Molly gasped from the door, breaking their illusion of being alone in the world.

They parted immediately, creating too much space between them for John's liking, even though he couldn't help but to feel slightly uncomfortable with the situation. Amongst other things he had completely forgotten they were standing in a morgue

"Erm, Molly, listen…" John coughed; reluctantly he lifted his eyes from the safe spot on the floor he had just discovered and look at her. He was met by a pair of wide eyes that looked like they definitely hoped what they had seen was nothing more than an illusion.

"I-I didn't mean to… You know… Walk in on you…" she stammered as her cheeks flushed bright red.

"It's perfectly normal, Molly, since John and I are a couple. And this is what couples  _do_ , is it not?" Sherlock said in a voice indicating the situation was rather self-explanatory, without moving his eyes away from John.

"But… in a morgue?" Molly looked confused as her eyes darted to and fro the two men.

"Granted, it's not the most common place to encounter this kind of… affection," Sherlock answered flatly and John felt the detective's eyes burn right through him, making it hard to concentrate on anything else in the room, let alone the presence of the unfortunate Molly.

"But we were just leaving." Sherlock swiftly grabbed John by the wrist and pulled him out of the morgue, while John did his best to keep up with Sherlock's long strides and at the same time tried to shoot Molly an apologetic look. This probably wasn't the nicest way for her to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know I took some creative liberties in this chapter – since I used 'meaning' as a positive thing, instead of using it as humankind's hopeless effort to seek meaning. But I think you'll survive that little flaw ;-)


	11. Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> Beta: many thankful thoughts goes to CowMow from FF.net, who has beta'ed this chapter.

**Redemption  
** John's PoV

When they got inside 221B John followed closely behind Sherlock on the way up the stairwell to their flat, not really knowing what to expect. In the cab, Sherlock's eyes had lit up and he had begun ranting to John about something to do with motives for murders and how he now understood the  _'_ why _'_  better – and John had the distinct feeling, judging by Sherlock's enthusiasm, that he was about to spend the better half of an afternoon listening to Sherlock mumbling to himself on the subject. Even though he would have preferred to spend the time differently, he was glad that everything was now back to normal, or rather: better than normal. It seemed to him that they could finally have a chat about where they were going with this (which, admittedly, they already had to some extend) – and if they should terminate one of the bedrooms' statuses as bedroom.

Reaching their hallway John headed off in the direction of the kitchen, he really needed that cuppa he didn't have earlier.

"John?" Sherlock said in a low voice, and John realised that the other man had stopped in the hallway instead of going into the drawing room. He began turning around, preparing himself to say something soothing to Sherlock, which, from the sound of his voice, seemed necessary.

He didn't get far in his motion, instead he felt a strong grip on his wrists as he was twirled around and found his back slammed against the kitchen door, arms pinned above his head. Sherlock pressed himself against him, and John gulped as he stared into his eyes and saw an indefinable expression. Sherlock's pupils were clearly dilated, his lips slightly parted and his breathing grew heavier as a blush grew on his cheeks. At the same time his eyes were penetrating John's, seemingly trying to  _see_ every thought and emotion going on inside of him. He felt rather exposed being pinned up like this, his body not knowing whether to respond to Sherlock's arousal or to the dangerous, penetrating glance in his eyes.

"You are never going to leave me." It sounded like a statement, but John could see how Sherlock's eyes changed ever so slightly, revealing that it was just as much a question as it was a statement.

"No, not unless you want me to," John said as he tried to give the other man a reassuring smile, which seemed almost impossible as John felt how his body decided to respond to the arousal as his breath became shallow and his heart started to pound faster the more of Sherlock's body heat it received.

Sherlock leaned forward; brushing his lips against John's ear he whispered, "I. don't.  _ever_. want. you. to. leave. me."

John panted and let out the breath of air he had not been aware he had been holding. He was now acutely aware of Sherlock's erection pressing against his hipbone.

The taller man took both of John's wrists in his left hand, keeping him pinned in a strong grip, while he slowly let the fingers of his other hand slide down John's arm and find its way up to his face and cupped his cheek. He extracted himself enough to look into John's eyes and drew in a ragged breath before he closed his eyes and placed a soft kiss upon John's lips.

John felt his stomach flutter and reciprocated the kiss eagerly, parting his lips to invite Sherlock's tongue inside. An invitation the other man wasn't late to accept as he moaned and deepened the kiss, pushing John into the wooden door with all of his weight.

Sherlock moved his free hand down and tugged at John's jumper and shirt; seemingly not wanting to break neither his hold on John nor their kiss out of fear that John might disappear if he did so. John felt the pressure on his wrists ease up as Sherlock chose to dedicate both of his hands to get John out of the fabric covering his upper body, pulling them off in one swift movement.

John buried his fingers in Sherlock's dark curls and pulled the taller man closer. He could feel Sherlock's fingers beginning to fiddle with his belt-buckle and realised that if he was not to get caught naked by Mrs. Hudson, they had to move themselves out of their hallway before she decided to pop up to say hello, her timing almost always being impeccable.

"Sherlock…" John panted, "Sherlock we should mo-"

Sherlock silenced him effectively by cutting off his air supply with his lips, but it seemed that the other man got the message, because instead of opening his belt, he hooked a slim finger just behind John's waistband and walked backwards, dragging John with him towards his bedroom.

John felt himself being pushed down on the bed and Sherlock literally fell on top of him, pinning him down once more as he kissed his way down John's jaw and neck. John intertwined his fingers in Sherlock's curls once more and groaned when he felt Sherlock's fingers resuming their work on his belt. He tightened his grip on the other man's hair and dragged him up into a kiss, pushing his tongue into his mouth. Sherlock moaned into his mouth and the soft sound sent shivers down John's spine.

He released Sherlock's hair from his tight grip and began to push off his blazer, the damn thing felt like it had been glued to Sherlock's shirt and the soft, white body underneath. Sherlock didn't seem the least interested in helping him getting it off, in fact he was rather distracting in the process as he straddled John and began grinding against his erection, reminding John that the clever thing would have been to let Sherlock take off his trousers while he were at it.

Finally he managed to get the blazer off of Sherlock. He threw it with all the force he could muster somewhere in the room – it clearly landed on something that fell to the floor and broke. Sherlock either didn't registrar the sound, or he simply ignored it, and kissed his way down the line of John's jaw until he reached his ear and softly sucked the earlobe,

"I want to know I'm yours," Sherlock panted, his lips still so close that John more felt than heard the words.

Feeling his breath escape him at the sound of the words, he tumbled Sherlock over and pinned him between himself and the bed, and gazed down into the grey eyes staring up at him. He didn't need to be Sherlock to figure out that the look in Sherlock's eyes revealed both desire and longing. It would probably be the closest Sherlock would ever get to telling John he loved him, but John could live with that when he knew that the feelings were there.

He bent down and placed a soft kiss on Sherlock's forehead and heard a soft gasp escaping Sherlock's mouth. Resting his forehead against Sherlock's he whispered softly, "Of course you're mine, you'll always be mine. I love you Sherlock, you know that."

He kissed Sherlock softly on the lips and felt the other man reciprocate, one of his hands coming up to cup John's cheek tenderly.

John disentangled himself from Sherlock and unbuttoned his shirt, this time he had a little more help in getting the fabric to part from the skin. He heard Sherlock drawing in a breath and holding it as he unzipped his trousers before slowly pulling them off along with the rest of the fabric that hid the pale skin underneath. John couldn't help himself and stood still on the floor watching the naked body stretch out on the bed before him. He took on the soft, dark curls, the eyes which did their best to hide the vulnerability of the owner from the rest of the world, from everyone who wasn't John, the perfect, soft lips now slightly swollen from kissing, the long pale neck, the well-defined muscles of the equally pale torso, the soft black hairs on the abdomen, the throbbing, dark erection, the long, pale legs and feet sticking out over the edge of the bed.

Sherlock stretched out a hand in an inviting gesture, silently begging him to come back to the bed. John stripped off the last of his clothes and retrieved a bottle of lube from the nightstand before crawling back into the bed. He slicked the fingers of his left hand and kissed Sherlock as his hand found its way between Sherlock's thighs and one of his fingers pushed into him. Sherlock moaned and buried a hand in John's short hair, the other finding John's erection. John groaned as an electric current travelled through his body.

He inserted a second finger, and slowly began scissoring Sherlock open, struggling to keep his pace steady and controlled while Sherlock's grip on his own erection tightened and the pace of his strokes quickened. John could feel Sherlock's hot breath on his neck and his lips almost touching his skin.

"John…" Sherlock panted, "John, take me now."

John groaned when he heard the words. He extracted his fingers from Sherlock and reached over to retrieve a pillow and placed it underneath the other man to make sure the angle would be comfortable.

Sherlock spread his legs to make room for him, and John added more lube to his erection before entering him slowly, extracting out a loud moan from the man underneath him. John panted; he could feel he was already close, too close for his own liking. He focused on keeping a steady pace as he found Sherlock's prostate and concentrated on hitting it again and again.

Sherlock groaned and wrapped his arms and legs around John, forcing him to quicken his pace and push himself harder into him.

"Oh God, Sher… Sherlock if you keep this up…" John struggled to say between each stroke. Sherlock didn't seem to care; he looked up at John and placed a hungry kiss on his lips before using his legs to quicken the pace even more.

Sherlock broke away from the kiss when he arched his neck and back backwards with a loud groan and John felt the limbs and muscles that surrounded him tighten as the other man forcefully came. He couldn't hold himself any longer; the sight before him combined with the pressure proved to be too much and he came with a loud moan.

They lay still for a moment, trying to catch their breath. John could feel their hearts racing and smell the mixing of their sweat.

He placed a chaste kiss on Sherlock's lips before he carefully extracted himself from him. Sherlock turned to lie on his side, his back turned towards John in what looked a lot like a foetal position. John looked at his back and he could see how Sherlock's body moved with every shaky breath he took, clearly he was forcing himself to calm down after the orgasm, trying in an, to John, almost desperate manner to regain control over his body.

He moved closer to Sherlock so that their sweaty bodies touched and wrapped an arm around him, tenderly placing a kiss on his neck before breathing in his scent. John moved his hand up from Sherlock's stomach and placed it over his heart, feeling the fast pace slowly calming down.

"I love you, you know that?" John whispered to the back of Sherlock's head. There came no answer other than the slight increase of the other man's heartbeat.

They lay like that for a while, and John couldn't help but wonder how Sherlock could ever doubt him. If anyone should doubt anyone, it should be him doubting Sherlock – and admittedly he had – since Sherlock seemed far from capable of formulating his feelings and tended to do stupid things when he felt cornered. For a moment John thought about ignoring it all and just be happy that he finally seemed allowed to officially consider Sherlock his partner. But he would probably never have as good a chance as this to clear things up between them,

"Sherlock?" he said softly. Sherlock stirred a bit to pretend that he had fallen asleep,

"Mmm…"

"Sherlock, can I ask you something?" John whispered hesitantly.

"Technically you already have – twice deeming by the tone of your voice the first time you said my name. But go ahead, ask a third question," Sherlock said in an exasperated tone of voice.

John rolled his eyes as he translated Sherlock's words to  _'If you learn to use the English language correctly, then by all means do ask your question if you deem it necessary'_ ,

"If you were afraid of me leaving you to have children and get married… Then why were you afraid that Greg and I… were 'intimate' as you put it?" John could feel Sherlock's body tense up, his muscles feeling like they were getting ready to flight rather than fight,

"Sherlock, it's okay, but I would like to know if this… this kind of thing is something we would have to deal with in the future…" John whispered tenderly as he softly stroked the skin above Sherlock's heart.

"It is not, I assure you," Sherlock answered in a whisper.

John drew in a breath; he had to see this through to the end,

"Then tell me why you thought what you did." Sherlock's body went even tenser and John smiled a little as he thought he could literally feel Sherlock thinking hard.

"I… it doesn't matter." The words were almost inaudible and it would seem Sherlock was talking more to the bed than to John.

"It matters to you, and therefore it matters to me." John said, trying to sound as soothing as possible.

"Fine…"Sherlock let out a sigh "Logically it does not make any sense, I'm well aware of that. Especially considering the kind of person you are – and Lestrade for that matter. I was perhaps overreacting; I was afr… I assumed you were going to leave me, and I'm aware of the fact that Lestrade has some interest in you." The words flowed out of Sherlock in a fast stream, and John had to concentrate to grasp the meaning. When he did, it was his turn to tense up; he did see why Sherlock's behaviour made logical sense in its own way – even though it was a way Sherlock himself wouldn't recognise as logical.

"And it would seem that you are aware of his  _interest_ as well," Sherlock said and placed a hand on top of John's, giving it a soft squeeze, "and besides, I had a rather disturbing dream thanks to, amongst other things, that horrible movie you showed me not long ago with the Austrian actor who got pregnant."

John raised his eyebrows a bit and stared at Sherlock's curls, he knew exactly to what movie Sherlock was referring. So it would appear that even the great Sherlock Holmes were affected subconsciously by the world and the things in it,

"I see." John said, and Sherlock shifted a little so he could look up at John,

"You see? How can you, it hardly makes any sense." He crinkled his brows and studied John's face as if he could deduce the answer just by looking at him. Had their conversation been about anything else than this, he probably would have succeeded. John chuckled softly and stroked Sherlock on the smooth skin on his stomach,

"It does to me, at least." He placed a kiss on Sherlock's forehead before he untangled himself from Sherlock, who in return made a grumpy sound.

"I need food, I think we both do, no matter how much you might object."

John quickly put on his trousers and went into the kitchen to see what they had in the fridge. To his (not so big) surprise it was completely empty, except from some tomatoes that had clearly seen better days. He couldn't help but smile a little at the lack of body parts.

"What are you smiling at?" Sherlock's voice came from the door opening.

"Nothing, nothing at all. Look, I'll go out and get us some dinner – Chinese?" John looked at Sherlock and tried his best to keep the smile under control. If Sherlock found out he knew about the fridge, it probably wouldn't take long before body parts once again made their presence known in the flat.

"If you insist," Sherlock said, sounding appalled at the mere thought of eating.

John gave him a quick peck on the cheek as he passed him and retrieved his jumper from the hallway floor.

Out on the street John took in a deep breath of fresh London air – coughed a bit and began walking in the direction of the Chinese restaurant. He had a hard time controlling his smile as he walked in a quick pace. All he really wanted was to go back to the flat and watch crap telly cuddled up on the sofa with Sherlock.

A sleek, black car pulled up to the kerb next to him, and he felt his stomach drop, this couldn't have happened at a worse time.

The driver got out and opened the door to the car's back seat, gesturing at John to get in.


	12. Doctors, Detectives and the Government

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> Beta: many thankful thoughts goes to CowMow from FF.net, who has beta'ed this chapter.

**Doctors, Detectives and the Government  
** Mycroft's PoV

He rested his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned back into it. For obvious reasons he had to put a stop to this nonsense and, unfortunately, he had to be more blunt than he cared to. John, being the good little soldier that he was, wouldn't just accept the vague suggestions, hints or threats he normally preferred to use.

The door to the office opened and John walked in to the room. He held his back straight, looking like he was ready to fight, which was of course ridiculous because there would be no fight. Mycroft would give him his reasons, lay out the facts, and John would see his point and do the right thing – he did care about Sherlock after all. Even though he often reacted instinctively, he still had some rational thoughts running through that blond head of his.

"Mycroft," John said as he stopped in front of the desk, looking like he deliberately ignored the chair next to him. Mycroft straightened his back and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk and stapled his fingers in a manner he was uncomfortably aware of resembled that of his little brother.

"Doctor Watson, always a pleasure," he replied with his most polite smile, and nodded at the chair on the other side of the desk, "Please, do have a seat."

He could see the muscles in John's jaw tighten before he, without a sound, seated himself in the chair. Mycroft leaned back again and looked at the soldier in front of him. He had to admit that he could see why his little brother found him attractive, fascinating even. And he had to admit that he had found himself a little too interested in the recordings from the CCTV he had received a couple of days ago.

"Mycroft, this…" John looked at him and raised his eyebrows to indicate that he was both being serious and annoyed, "This is really not a good time."

"Well, considering that your phone was switched off yesterday and you did not answer the  _text_  I sent you, I saw no other option." He eyed the blond man, acutely aware that events had taken a different turn than he initially had expected. He did not need to have a surveillance camera in their flat to know what had happened there – this knowledge could be derived from the fact that John and his little brother had left Bart's together and that John's body language was now reacting in a most peculiar manner – both too relaxed and too tense at the same time.

"Oh, your text – I had other things on my mind than to respond to your riddles," John said in the utmost polite tone – too polite to be sincere. In fact it was so polite it revealed a hidden insult.

"Riddles? It wasn't a  _riddle_ , I was merely stating the obvious…"

"The obvious?" John rudely cut him off.

"Yes, the obvious – every action necessarily produces a reaction. May it be a good or bad reaction, it's a reaction nonetheless." He raised his eyebrows and looked at John, who had begun looking a little confused. It was almost endearing.

"In the text I sent you I was simply referring to the fact that you chose to make my brother fond of you, and then you chose to have a  _pint_  with DI Lestrade." Mycroft put on his best blank face, and was doing his best to suppress the images from the videotape.

"How did you know about me and Sher… Never mind, I don't even want to know. And I didn't  _make_  Sherlock fond of me, and Greg and I are friends, simple as that. And you, of all people, would know that we've only had a couple of pints." John shot him a defiant glance; Mycroft could see at least a part of why Sherlock had fallen for the soldier.

* * *

_The transcript of the tape had been explicit enough, there had been no real reason for him to watch the recording as well._

* * *

Ignoring John's reference to the CCTV, Mycroft let out a deliberately exasperated sigh,

"I do hope you realise that my brother has no experience in this area," he said as he made a vague gesture to underline what he meant by 'this area' – although it probably was unnecessary since John had quite a record of experience in 'this area', even if his experience was limited to people of the opposite sex.

Mycroft watched as John's expression hardened even more. Really, there was no need for this behaviour, Mycroft thought. He had both Sherlock and John's best intentions in mind, after all.

* * *

_It had been without sound, but it had not been necessary – even if he hadn't been able to read lips, there would have been no doubt in his mind about what was being said. The images spoke for themselves._

* * *

John sighed, "You don't have to lecture me on Sherlock's shortcomings – or lack of experience when it comes to  _relationships_  – I'm well aware of them. If you are so keen on having this discussion with me, then I can tell you that I'm sure we are going to figure it out."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow in amusement. It was truly fascinating to see how John would seem to do almost anything for his little brother, no matter what the costs might be for himself.

"Oh yes, it would seem that way, wouldn't it? But don't get your hopes up, tying my brother down is like trying to handcuff quicksand, you can try all you want, but you won't succeed." He put on a soft, concerned smile and looked at John, who by now seemed torn between being angry and being offended on Sherlock's behalf.

* * *

_The image of John pushed against the wall, screaming of pleasure, still lingered in the back of his mind and was making his pulse go a little faster._

* * *

Mycroft leaned forward and tightened his lips. It would seem that he was talking for deaf ears.

"I have quite a lot of sympathy for you, you know. You may be blind to some things, but you are very faithful. I would hate to see things go badly between the two of you." He raised both eyebrows and tried his hardest to convince John of his sincerity. To his own surprise he found that he was, for once, being at least partly sincere.

" _Sentiment_  is not something Sherlock nor I are capable of – it is a weakness. You wouldn't want to give Sherlock such a disadvantage, would you?" He asked the blond-haired man who was, if possible, looking even more furious.

John stood op from the chair with a violent movement, and for a couple of seconds the chair threatened to fall backwards.

This shouldn't be so hard, Mycroft thought, but it would seem he had to go through every little concern he had ever had regarding his brothers involvement with the dear soldier. Leaving out, off course, the positive effects he had had on Sherlock.

* * *

_His little brother's firm grip on the blond-haired man's hips as he violently pushed himself into him came to his consciousness and threatened to reveal its presence in his eyes._

* * *

John curled his fingers into tight fists and shot Mycroft a firm glance,

"Thank you for your concern, but I don't think you have to worry about that," he said before he turned around and moved towards the door. This had been, to say the least, a catastrophe.

"John!" Mycroft called out and John stopped dead in his tracks as he visibly stiffened.

"You see I do, I do worry. I know my brother, better than you I might add, and at some point he will either grow tired of you or do something foolish which will hurt you." Mycroft could have bitten off his own tongue, this was an expression of  _sentiment_ , and he didn't like it in the slightest.

At these words John turned around, walked back to the desk and placed both his hands on the wooden surface so he could lean in.

* * *

_John's fingers dug into the brick wall in an effort to keep himself grounded, his lips gasping for air and his face revealing that he had completely given over control to Sherlock._

* * *

"I think you are wrong, on both accounts. And I'm sorry, but I think I know him better than you do," John sneered in the most dramatic manner. As compliant as John could seem, he could be equally thick-headed – in other words: a true soldier.

This might be the time for a change of tactics, since appealing to John's self-preservation didn't seem to work.

"Or he will end up getting himself hurt. You know what he is willing to go through for the few people he cares about." Mycroft stood up; he didn't want to have the disadvantage of being shorter than the person he was trying to convince.

John tightened his lips and for a second he appeared to be considering what Mycroft had just told him.

Then his eyes grew firm again.

"Sherlock and I have had that discussion, thank you. And he has long ago sworn to me that he will never lie to me like that again," he said as he shot Mycroft a glare that told him he had overstepped a boundary. Mycroft didn't care; this had unexpectedly evolved into a power play. If he did not succeed, he would have to take more drastic measures.

"But you know he will. He is not fit to be in a…  _relationship_ _._ So before he becomes even fonder of you and then messes it all up, it would be better if the two of you were to… go your separate ways," Mycroft said.

" _What?_ " John looked at him with a disbelieving expression. Amazing how he had not seen that one coming, it wasn't surprising Sherlock found him to be a good audience for his thoughts.

"And what you two have together gives him a very real, very grave, weakness. You will end up getting him killed. That is a reaction to the action of getting _emotionally_  involved with Sherlock."

This, Mycroft thought, would be the final blow. John would die before he let anything happen to Sherlock. He had to admit that it had been a dirty trick, but he had no doubts in his mind that at some point John would end up being the reason for an even worse breach in national security than Miss Adler had been –and probably get Sherlock killed in the process.

John's face went blank for a couple of seconds before he finally spoke,

"I… I would never let it come to that," he said in a low voice.

"No, but there is a very real chance it  _would_ come to that nonetheless," Mycroft said softly. It seemed necessary under the circumstances,

"As I've expressed before, I'm concerned about the both of you."

"You do realise that  _if_  I do as you suggest, he might do something stupid anyway. He…" John broke off and fell back down in the chair.

"Yes, off course I do. But I would be there to catch him – something I cannot guarantee under… different circumstances." Mycroft sat down as well and took in John's broken expression.

Perhaps he had been a little too harsh, but it had been necessary to avert the potential damage. And had Sherlock not been so stupid as to let himself become involved with the blond man who now sat in front of him, this wouldn't have been necessary at all. Mycroft knew exactly how far Sherlock would be willing to go for the people he cared about – the question he did not want to see answered was how far he was willing to go for the person he loved.

And he wouldn't have had to appear as the villain if Sherlock had just continued being  _Sherlock_. He had honestly hoped these last few days would have taken care of the problem.


	13. Distractions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!
> 
> Warning: So, this chapter is a bit bloody… It is the 13th chapter after all, so I thought 'why not?' – therefore it contains a more or less explicit description of a murder…  
> Since I'm bloody bad ad judging what/who needs to be warned: If you are religious, have weak nerves, is a Satanist (e.i. not someone who literally worships the Devil - I had to take some creative liberties here), etc. etc. I apologise – I can't really give any more warnings without ruining the rest :-)

**Distractions  
** Sherlock's PoV

"Oi freak, where's John?" Sergeant Donovan yelled at him after he had passed her without a word. He really didn't want to answer that question, because he had no answer. John had just gone out to get them something to eat, and then he had disappeared.

His phone was still on, but he didn't answer the texts Sherlock had sent him. Anything could have happened, and Sherlock had been going over the various scenarios (stretching from abduction, over Mycroft kidnapping him to the worst-case scenario: John had decided he didn't mean what he had said at the morgue, and then had used the excuse about food to get out of the flat without making Sherlock alarmed) when Lestrade had called.

Normally Sherlock would have been overly excited, there had been a murder, a crucifixion nonetheless, and it sounded like a bit of a puzzle – but just because Lestrade couldn't figure it out it didn't necessarily mean it was that much of a puzzle.

"Hey, I asked you a question – what have you done with John?" Donovan had followed him into the apartment, and Sherlock was overwhelmed by a desire to turn around and strangle her.

"So Sally, working late lately?" He turned around and looked at her with his best fake smile whilst trying to kill her off with his eyes.

"What?" She looked at him with annoyance.

"Never mind, I'm sure the answer to the bags under your eyes is to be found somewhere in the apartment being as useless as a plant." He turned around again and continued in the direction of the drawing room.

It was evident from the neighbourhood, the furniture, carpets – and antique books on the shelves – that the owner of the apartment was wealthy. Had been wealthy to be correct. At present he was dead, nailed to the wall.

"I wasn't supposed to be at work before tomorrow," Lestrade said, sounding exasperated, as Sherlock stood next to him, "And then this happens – looks like it's the work of Satanists, doesn't it?" He looked at Sherlock, who couldn't help but to roll his eyes at him.

The victim was naked and crucified upside down, a large iron nail pierced his crossed angles and his arms were spread out wide with similar nails piercing through his wrists. Dried traces of blood flowed up (technically down) his legs towards his abdomen and puddles of blood had assembled themselves on the floor underneath each wrist before they had dried up. A piece of cloth was propped into his mouth to dampen the screams that would have been inevitable judging by the posture and the fact that he would have had to be very much alive when he had been nailed to the wall for the blood to flow like that.

Sherlock walked closer and looked at the man's tormented expression, there would have to have been at least two assailants. He had received a severe beating before he had been pinned up, even though he was in a very good physical shape, very adroit it would seem, and would have been able to handle one assailant with only minor efforts.

What if something similar had happened to John, if someone could torture and kill a man like this, then it would probably be easier to…

"This should satisfy you, I'd think." Anderson, Sherlock had completely forgotten about him.

"What was his name?" Sherlock ignored him as he examined the nails.

"You mean you didn't notice? It was on the door, you walked right past it," Donovan said in an amused tone. Lestrade sighed somewhere behind him,

"Enough Sally. His name was Samuel Michaels," he said. Sherlock got up and scanned the room. He didn't see how on earth the Yard could be this stupid.

"He doesn't appear in any of our records, looks like he lived a quiet life, kept to himself according to the neighbours," Lestrade said.

"It looks professional, no fingerprints, nothing. But Satanists usually likes to invert the cross, though there's no reason why a man like him would be involved with those lots," Anderson said as he leaned against a wall and crossed his arms.

Sherlock glanced at him. He was in a room filled with idiots.

"It wasn't Satanists. Mr. Michaels here is a know thief," Sherlock began before he was interrupted by Lestrade,

"Thief? He lives a little too comfortable for a thief – and as I said, he's not in any of our records."

"No, I wouldn't expect him to be. Our paths have crossed before. He specialises in stealing valuable artefacts such as paintings and antique books." Sherlock nodded towards one of the bookshelves.

"Old books, why would anyone be interested in old books?" Anderson said sceptically from his place at the wall. Sherlock sighed, really of all the countries on the planet, why did Anderson have to be living in England?

"Because  _antique_  books can be very valuable, especially if they have a history, and judging by the papers and notes on his desk, he has recently acquired a very old copy of the Bible that is now nowhere to be seen in this apartment. If he had hidden it until he was to hand it over to the buyer, he wouldn't have left evidence lying around like that. No, someone who wanted that book interrupted him – I assume it was someone who wanted it  _back_ ," Sherlock said and stopped to draw in a breath. This was a nice distraction, tedious, but nice. John should have texted him by now. Or called. John would have called him if something had come up. Perhaps he had just run into someone he knew and had forgotten the time, he could do that if he ran into an old acquaintance sometimes. What old acquaintance could possibly occupy him so?

"Sherlock, are you with us?" Lestrade cut through his thoughts.

"Hmm?" Sherlock looked at him; what was Lestrade doing in their flat? He blinked a couple of times before he came back to reality.

Sherlock clenched his lips tightly, this wouldn't do, John distracted him from the Work, and the Work distracted him from John.

"Not so brilliant today, are you?" Donovan asked in a mocking tone.

Sherlock took himself to the forehead, if they tried to use their brains, or had they just observed, they would have had a fair chance at coming somewhere close to what had happened in the apartment.

"There was two of them, a man of his stature would not have been easy to nail to the wall like that when alive if there had only been one assailant. The murderers are two muscular men, probably mid-thirties, very religious, Opus Dei or something similar." Sherlock looked at their empty faces. It was really quite fascinating how blank they could be.

"Religious? How do you get that?" Lestrade looked baffled.

"It's not  _The da Vinci Code_  you know, it's real murder," Donovan interjected. Sherlock ignored her; he had no idea what she was talking of,

"The position of the body, he's been crucified upside-down. The owner of the stolen Bible would not have troubled himself with assuring this if it didn't mean anything. Sankt Peter, the acclaimed grounder of the Catholic Church, was crucified upside-down because he thought he was unworthy of being crucified in the same manner as Jesus. The murderers wanted to send a message, but they did not want to honour Mr. Michaels by crucifying him the right way around. Besides, whoever killed him wasn't mindless Satanists, they were well aware of the fact that when you crucify someone, you cannot put the nails through the palms of the victim, because that would end up causing the flesh to split and the person crucified to slip down – the same goes for the feet." Sherlock sighed; this was really basic anatomy.

"You don't know how the solar system works, but this you know?" Anderson said doubtfully.

"One can learn everything there is to learn about murders if one bothers to study crimes committed in the past. And crucifixion was a method the Romans were fond of when they needed to make an example. Besides there is a fine line between murder and execution sometimes – and the methods can, as you see, be quite similar." Sherlock looked at Anderson, he shouldn't have been allowed to work for the police, if anything he just slowed down any investigation he was involved in.

"So, okay… We are looking for someone highly religious who got an old Bible stolen recently. Who do you recon the buyer was?" Lestrade cut through the awkward silence that had settled in the apartment.

"Most likely a collector of some sort – that is usually his kind of customer, he doesn't like to be involved with any other kind of fanatics," Sherlock said before turning to leave the room. The thrill of the case was lacking, and John wasn't there to tell him he was being cleaver. He just wanted to find John and go home; whoever was behind the murder of Samuel Michaels would just have to wait to be arrested until Lestrade found them. Sherlock had, after all, put the man on the right track, so he would get there – eventually.

"Sherlock wait," Lestrade called out just before Sherlock reached the street, "Where is John? I thought you went home to him," he said as he reached Sherlock and followed him out of the door.

"At least tell me that you have been in contact with him," Lestrade looked at him with some concern.

"I have, and yes, I have been home. And so has John," Sherlock answered him while he was scouting for a cab. For some reason none seemed to appear on the street.

"And? Have you talked things over with him?" Lestrade pressed. It would seem he did not want to let the matter go. Sherlock wondered if it had been the wrong thing to drink with him, because now it would seem that he thought of them as  _friends_. He grimaced, he didn't have friend _s_ , he had John, which was more than enough if John had only been there. Discussing his personal life – on the street of all places – wasn't really something he was interested in.

"Sherlock, did you talk to him about… Whatever the problem seems to be?" Apparently Lestrade didn't give up just like that, something that could explain why he had made it to Detective Inspector – people grew tired of his questions and finally answered them just to get rid of him.

"We have discussed the matter, yes," Sherlock answered him curtly. That should be enough of an answer.

But apparently it wasn't, because Lestrade decided to audibly draw in a breath of air big enough to indicate some long, tedious lecture,

"If you have discussed it, as you say, then where is John? He wouldn't want to miss going to a crime scene with you – he's even ditched work to come along with you from time to time. And he's a reasonable man, so if you've talked about it, then he would be here, wouldn't he?"

Sherlock turned to look at the DI who seemed concerned, though Sherlock had no idea whether he was concerned for him or for John. Either way, he wouldn't stop nagging Sherlock.

"If you must know, then yes, we have discussed it, yes I thought the matter was cleared up and everything seemed…  _fine_ ," he said and felt his cheeks blush at the memories of the afternoon, "John went out to get something to eat and haven't come back. And he doesn't answer my texts, so obviously either something bad has happened, in which case I'm sure I would have heard of it by now, or he simply decided that our  _discussion_  wasn't fulfilling enough and left." He looked away to avoid the apparent look of pity that came over Lestrade's face.

"Listen, we both know John, and he would never act like that – I can't blame you for thinking he would though, 'cause I wouldn't be surprised if that would be your solution to something you couldn't handle," Lestrade shot him a small smile, it would seem he thought he was being funny, "Something probably came up and he will come back as soon as he can, or answer your texts for that matter."

"I should go," Sherlock replied as he saw his lifeboat appearing around a corner in the shape of a black cab.


	14. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**Freedom  
** John's PoV

When John was finally dropped off at 221B Baker Street it was dark. He looked up at the windows to their flat, his heart dropped as he saw the darkness of the flat staring back at him. Sherlock wasn't home, perhaps he had thought John had just deserted him and gone somewhere else. He cursed to himself, if Sherlock had gone off to take drugs, or do something similarly stupid, he was going to kill Mycroft.

John locked himself in and walked up the stairs with heavy feet, it didn't make sense; he had answered Sherlock's texts as soon as he had left Mycroft's office and told him he was coming home. But perhaps it had already been too late?

The drawing room was quiet except from the sounds from the street below flowing in through the windows. He sighed and took of his jacket before seating himself in the sofa, things had finally brightened up a bit, and now this had happened. Perhaps they had just been doomed from the beginning; perhaps Mycroft was right that it would end badly for Sherlock, himself or both of them.

"Where were you?"

John gave a startled squeal as Sherlock's voice broke the silence of the room,

"Jesus Sherlock, what are you doing sitting there in the dark? You scared the life out of me!" he said as he looked in the direction of the voice that had come from Sherlock's chair. Now that his eyes had gotten used to the darkness he could see the silhouette of Sherlock in it.

"Thinking." The deep voice coming from the dark seemed to detach itself from the person and filled up the room. John closed his eyes and sighed,

"What were you thinking about?" he asked.

"Where you were, why you didn't answer my texts." John could see Sherlock's silhouette stir a little before he got out of the chair and stood by the window. His face became dimly illuminated by the streetlights, making him look even paler than he usually did.

"I've answered your texts; I told you I was coming home," John said defensively and shifted a little in his seat, "And as to where I was – your oh-so-dear brother kidnapped me –  _again_." He watched Sherlock, whose face did not give away anything.

The flat was silent for what seemed like an eternity.

"What did he want?" Sherlock finally said, moving his head just enough to indicate to John that he was being watched carefully by the detective.

John sighed and cringed his forehead a little, he didn't know if it would be a good thing to tell Sherlock everything.

"Tell me what he wanted from you," Sherlock demanded when John was still debating what to say.

"Well, he – he wanted to warn me," John began, but he was interrupted by Sherlock, who snorted in disdain,

"Against me I presume. Tell me, did he have anything interesting to add to all of this." Sherlock made a vague motion towards the room and John.

"He wanted to warn me that we would both end up being hurt – that you were not capable of having a relationship." John hesitated a little; he didn't like to be reminded of Mycroft's words.

"And?" Sherlock pressed on and turned to watch John carefully, his eyes glistering from the streetlights.

"And that I would end up getting you killed," John said and locked eyes with Sherlock. He felt like Sherlock was trying to rip out his inner thoughts to study them under his microscope.

"And he told you this without any other agenda?" Off course Sherlock knew that that was not all Mycroft had said. John drew in a deep breath before continuing; he could see how Sherlock tightened up from his place at the window,

"He told me that I should leave you if I didn't want to be the reason for your death." John turned his head to look out the other window, avoiding Sherlock's eyes.

"And you think he is right – that you are going to be the reason for my death?" It was more of a statement than a question. John clenched his lips tight, he didn't want to answer it, question or not.

"John," Sherlock said just a pitch too high to conceal the fear in his voice, "Tell me,  _do you think he is right?_ "

John turned to look at Sherlock again. How he wished Mycroft had just stayed out of this, out of their lives, that he hadn't planted this seed of fear in John's mind.

"I think he could be right," he said in a barely audible whisper. The second the words had escaped his lips he wished that they hadn't, he could see how Sherlock's face went blank, as if he was withdrawing every feeling he had ever had for John from his features and hiding them somewhere out of reach.

"Sherlock, I-I don't want to be the reason for your death." He felt his eyes beginning to burn and looked down at his shoes, they suddenly felt like the safest place in the world.

"So… You've decided to listen to him then," Sherlock said and turned back to stare out of the window just as John had gathered enough courage to look at him again, "I assure you, he  _always_  has more than one agenda."

"Sherlock, I… I just think he's generally concerned for you," John tried, Sherlock snorted at this,

"Oh, off course he is – he's concerned that I'll be an embarrassment to him, that I will threaten national security, that I will end up breaking  _you._ " Disdain was dripping off his every word, "Unlike Mycroft, I believe everyone is free to make their own choices, decide what from their past should form their future – to carry the weight of the word on their shoulders you might say. You can  _choose_ , based on past, negative experiences, to do what he suggested or you can  _choose_ to disregard the negatives, to cave out another path. You are free to do both, but either way it will have consequences." Sherlock turned his attention back to John and watched him for a second before he huffed in something resembling amusement and turned back to the window.

John realised he had been sitting with his mouth half ajar, and snapped it shut. He didn't like being trapped between the Holmes brothers the way he was now, like a mouse trapped between a rattlesnake and a boa, both unable to decide whether to launch at each other or the mouse. Neither reaction promised a pleasant result.

He could see more or less exactly what would happen if he listened to Mycroft, he was certain of what it would do to himself and to Sherlock. He also had a feeling Mycroft would turn his life into a living Hell if he didn't do what he had suggested.

"Sherlock, I'm… I can't risk losing you."

Sherlock snorted at him, but otherwise remained silent. John got up and slowly moved to stand behind him, resting his right hand on the other man's hip. He could feel him shivering ever so slightly; it wasn't visible to the naked eye.

"You know, there's just as big a chance that  _I_ would be the one ending up getting  _you_  killed. I would do anything to avoid that from happening. So I might not agree with you choice, but I won't blame you for it," Sherlock whispered while looking in John's eyes through the reflection in the window. John gave his hip a gentle squeeze and rested his forehead between Sherlock's shoulder blades,

"Sherlock, as I said: I can't risk losing you – so please, prove your bloody brother wrong." John rested his other hand on Sherlock's left hip before slowly sliding it onto his stomach and up to rest above his heart that was beating so fast it seemed to take part in a race.

"John, you're not leaving?" Sherlock sounded insecure, and John could feel how his muscles tightened up after the question had left his lips.

"I told you, nothing people can say can scare me away – but I need you to promise me that you're going to look after yourself," John answered and gave Sherlock a gentle squeeze, "You can't die and leave me to the wrath of Mycroft Holmes," he added in a teasing voice and felt Sherlock relaxing a little.

"I'm not a sadist, John. I would, off course, ensure that if I got killed, Mycroft would as well." John chuckled slightly at the words; he knew that Sherlock actually believed he meant at least some of it.

"Well in that case…" John smiled into the back of the detective, "I don't see why he should come between us."

Sherlock relaxed in to John and let a finger caress the back the hand on his chest, before interlacing their fingers,

"I hate repetitions," Sherlock stated. John lifted his head so he could watch the detective's reflexion in the window. He had closed his eyes as if to avoid John's gaze.

"What do you mean?"

"These last few days. I hate repetitions, and it would seem that I have repeated myself these last few days – I've repeated… being… afraid that you would leave," Sherlock said in a whisper. John gave him a small squeeze and stretched to place a kiss on his neck,

"Well, in relationships some things are bound to repeat themselves. Some repetitions might be more… pleasant than others," he whispered back.

"So, we are officially a couple now? And you are not just going to leave?" Sherlock turned his head slightly to observe John through the corner of his eye. John smiled to himself; for a man not liking repetitions he seemed to need a lot of them. Sherlock seemed to think the smile was some kind of answer to his questions that he was not able to interpret and quirked a brow,

"You are not really being helpful if that expression is supposed to be an answer," he said flatly.

"Sherlock, I'm simply smiling because I'm happy; and yes, I think we are officially a couple now, and no, I'm not just going to leave – I think I've proved that quite enough by now."

Sherlock released John's hand from his and turned around to look at him, like he was searching for something to prove that John wasn't really telling the truth, something that could cause him to shatter into a million pieces before long. Looking at Sherlock, John could see that he finally gave up his ridicules quest for a lie.

"I love you Sherlock, I'm not going anywhere – whatever happens, we will figure it out, we always have," John said as he drew the other man closer and rested his hands on the small of his back.

"John, I…" Sherlock began, but then he seemed to give up on the sentence and instead he cupped John's left cheek and placed a soft, chaste kiss on his lips. John reciprocated and parted his lips slightly, allowing for Sherlock to deepen the kiss. He could feel him sighing against his lips as he pressed himself against John's body.

Sherlock broke the kiss and rested his forehead against John's, cupping his cheeks with both hands and stared into his eyes, making John a little anxious by the intensity of his gaze,

"John…" Sherlock whispered and gulped. John held his breath, he was more than sure that this would be the moment where Sherlock would finally tell him he loved him Not that it truly mattered hearing him say it, because John had absolutely no doubt anymore about how Sherlock felt for him. But still, it would be nice to hear.

"John, I… I think we should use your bedroom as ours."

John felt one of his eyebrows rising on its own accord.

"I mean, it makes logical sense to use mine as a laboratory," Sherlock said as he withdrew himself a little from John to scrutinize him, "I thought you would prefer that I moved into your bedroom. I know mine is larger, but I think it's more practical that way – I can even have a refrigerator of my own in there. Just for my experiments." John had to giggle a bit at the last words; Sherlock had obtained a positively dreamy look on his face, and even though it wasn't exactly the words he had set his hopes for, they would definitely do, John thought.


	15. Helium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**Helium  
** John's PoV

" _SHERLOCK!_ "

John woke with a start and stretched out a hand in the hopes of finding the other side of his bed occupied by a mop of hair and limps sprawled over the entire bed and himself.

The bed, however, was empty. And it would seem that Mrs. Hudson had already given away Sherlock's whereabouts by shouting his name. It was still dark outside, and the alarm clock told John it was only 4:57 am, but apparently it wasn't too early for Sherlock to cause trouble.

Reluctantly John rolled out of bed, feeling a bit grumpy that his hopes of waking up with Sherlock still in the bed seemed too much to ask for.

A loud crash travelled up from the drawing room to his bedroom.

John threw on some clothes and rushed downstairs to find Mrs. Hudson in the doorway wearing a dressing gown and looking quite displeased.

"What's going on Mrs. Hudson?" John asked before he caught sight of Sherlock who was sprawled out on the floor along with several books.

"The violin I have gotten used to, but rummaging around with furniture in the middle of the night is a bit too much if you ask me." Mrs. Hudson shot John a firm glance. He sighed and furrowed his brows just as he caught sight of Sherlock's bed leaning against the hallway wall.

"Sherlock, what on earth are you doing?" John asked as he took in the sight of Sherlock struggling to get out from underneath the books. If it hadn't been this early, it would have been almost amusing.

"What we talked about." Through the dim light in the drawing room John could see that Sherlock was shooting him a  _'this should be obvious'_ -look.

"Talked about? We didn't talk about you moving out your bed alone in the middle of the night," John said as he walked over to help Sherlock getting up from the floor, "And besides, this doesn't make any sense. What were you doing with the bookshelf?"

Sherlock brushed off some dust before looking at John,

"I was simply retrieving a book."

John looked at him in disbelieve,

"No, sorry, that still doesn't explain why you ended up on the floor with half the bookshelf on top of you," John said and turned to take in the mess.

"Well," Sherlock said and cleared his throat, "the book was on top of the bookshelf and I thought I could reach." He glanced at John as if it was obvious. John looked at the bookshelf that could have landed on top of Sherlock. Fortunately it had decided to stay put.

"On top of the bookshelf you say. Sherlock, you never bother to put things where they are hard to retrieve – unless it's something you want to hide."

John did his best to shoot Sherlock a penetrating glance, but it would seem he wasn't as good at it as Sherlock, because the other man simply ignored him and began rummaging around with the books.

"I'm going back to bed, and I don't want another sound from up here until it's at least eight," Mrs. Hudson said from the doorway as she gave Sherlock a firm glance, that he ignored, before turning around and going back downstairs.

"Want some help?" John began to kneel down.

" _No!_ " Sherlock practically shouted and for a short moment he looked panicked.

"Sherlock, what was it really you were retrieving?" John had stopped mid-motion and looked at Sherlock, who was in an unusual hurry to gather the books and look at their titles. Not that he sorted them alphabetically, or even tried to make some sort of system in the mess. He simply glanced at titles on some of the books that looked similar (black, leather-bound) and then discarded them again. John felt a little uneasy with this behaviour. Perhaps Sherlock had been looking for some hidden drugs.

"A book, I told you," Sherlock hissed exasperated.

John decided to let it go for a while and placed himself in his chair where he could watch Sherlock's peculiar behaviour. Even in this agitated state Sherlock's movements were still graceful.

"I'll make some tea, now that I'm up anyway. Do you want some?" John stood up and looked at Sherlock, who only bothered to answer with a dismissive wave of his hand. John decided that it meant  _'yes, please'_  – regardless of Sherlock's objections.

While he was waiting for the water to boil, John heard a loud exclamation from the drawing room. It would appear that Sherlock had found whatever book he was looking for. Just to make sure it wasn't something not good, John sneaked his way to the door and watched as Sherlock flicked through the pages with a satisfied smile before hiding it underneath a pillow in the black leather chair. At least it seemed like an ordinary book, and not some hideout for drugs or a weapon – or anything illegal that didn't ordinarily come in the form of a book. John sneaked his way back to the kettle just as it started to whistle.

When he entered the drawing room with two steaming cups of tea, Sherlock had seated himself in his chair looking like he was thinking, his fingers were stippled under his chin and his eyes were closed.

John made his way to the chair and managed to avoid stumbling on the books.

"Tea," he said as he placed the cup on a small table next to Sherlock and returned to his own chair.

They sat like that in the quiet morning, Sherlock didn't move or say a word, and John sipped his tea and listened to the increasing sound of traffic from the street below. At some point, after John had finished his tea and the steam from Sherlock's cup had stopped its slow movement towards the ceiling, the dim light of morning entered the flat. John sighed, he had hoped that Sherlock would eventually tell him about the book, but it didn't seem that way.

"Sherlock, are you going to tell me what you were thinking – moving the bed out in the hallway in the middle of the night. And what was going on with that book?" John said as casually as he could. He looked at Sherlock, who didn't move a muscle.

"Sherlock, are you even present," John said in an indignant tone of voice that seemed to snap Sherlock back to reality. He studied John for a second or two before jumping out of the chair and disappearing into the hallway. John wondered shortly if now would be a good time to get the damn book and see what the fuss was about, but only a few minutes later Sherlock re-entered fully dressed and with his coat swirling behind him.

"I'm going to Bart's," he said as he pulled on his gloves. John felt sure he had heard wrong,

"You're going to Bart's – Sherlock, it's not even seven on a Sunday morning! How are you going to get in? And what am I to do with the bed in the hallway?" John stared at him in disbelieve, but all he got was a smug smile before Sherlock leaned over, held his chin with his glowed fingertips and placed a soft kiss on his lips. John uttered a somewhat strangled sound of surprise and with that Sherlock deepened the kiss, pressing his tongue into John's mouth. He cupped John's left cheek, and John found himself involuntarily gripping Sherlock's hips to pull him closer to the chair.

John tugged at the other man, who in return let himself be pulled down into the chair and straddled him. This was a bit unexpected, John thought, but he decided he could live with that. He pressed his fingers into Sherlock's hips and pushed his abdomen against Sherlock, who more than willingly grinded against him. John could feel himself getting hard, and the excessive amount of clothes Sherlock was wearing suddenly seemed like it was deliberately taunting him. Sherlock broke the kiss and placed both hands on the back of the chair and increased his pressure on John's crotch. He glanced into John's eyes, his eyes sparkling with arousal and, to John's concern, something resembling amusement. John chose to ignore the last part, and took in Sherlock as he sat there on top of him with slightly flushed cheeks and parted lips. He could hear the increased speed of Sherlock's breath and feel it coming against his own skin.

Sherlock let his head fall backwards, exposing his long, pale neck. It made John gasp, and he let his left hand caress the soft skin; he could feel the muscles and the Adam's apple. Sherlock let out a soft moan that made John clench his teeth; he wanted Sherlock right this moment. He let his fingers travel up to Sherlock's mouth, brushing the velvety skin of his lips. Sherlock lifted his head again and as he locked eyes with John he sucked in two of his fingers. John shivered when he felt Sherlock's warm, wet tongue brushing against his fingers and the suction along with the still rocking hips made him unable to breathe. This was almost as good as if it had been his erection, and not his fingers, that had had Sherlock's mouth wrapped around it.

Suddenly Sherlock pulled away and stood once again on the floor in front of John. His own arousal was obvious, the short breath and the dishevelled clothes was more than revealing. John panted a little at the sight. He really wanted Sherlock right now; his body was literally aching with desire.

Sherlock brushed off some dust and straightened his clothes just enough to look decent. With that he shot John a smug smile and twirled around, waving his right hand in goodbye as he walked away,

"I'm going to Bart's, I always get in, and the bed is going to be picked up around twelve," he said before rushing down the stairs.

John sat like a statue for a while, just staring in disbelieve towards the direction where Sherlock had disappeared. This was unexpected in an annoying way. His groin was beginning to ache a bit and his mouth felt weirdly dry. He realised that he had been sitting with an open mouth for something resembling ten minutes. He closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward to rest his head in his hands and stare at the floor. He could always masturbate, but right now he wanted Sherlock's mouth wrapped around his cock, not his own hand.

With a sigh he got up and decided that tea would be some kind of solution – maybe not the best, but it would have to do. He grabbed the empty cup next to the chair and went into the kitchen.

John put the kettle on and retrieved a new teabag. He yawned and wondered if he should just go back to bed. Then he remembered the book. He felt pretty sure that Sherlock hadn't taken it with him, something that incidentally meant that the kissing and petting in the chair was… John sighed and shook his head; it had been a distraction, something that would perhaps have worked well, if John hadn't decided to make tea again – or if he hadn't noticed where Sherlock had put it.

He felt like a criminal when he went back into the drawing room to dig out the book from underneath a black leather pillow. On the other hand, Sherlock had quite a lot of trouble respecting his private life, so it seemed only fair that John retaliated when the rare opportunity presented itself.

The kettle whistled, but John ignored it. The tea could wait.

It didn't exactly take long to find the book, and John felt a little disappointed actually. It was a black, leather-bound, medium sized older book with the title _Chemistry: Helium_. It didn't really strike John as something worth hiding from view, even though the binding seemed looser than usual. He opened it to see what was so special about it.

On the first leaf was written in a meticulous handwriting:  _John._

John crinkled his forehead; this was strange. He had no doubt that it was Sherlock's handwriting. He flipped through the pages and found that one third was filled with the same handwriting – the rest was blank.

The second leaf had a date in the top, revealing that it had been written about a month prior to the first time he and Sherlock had been together. John felt guilty; it looked like some sort of diary, even though he had never thought Sherlock would keep a diary, and definitely not one on paper.

He bit his lower lip and began reading.

_This has to be written down, otherwise I don't think it will leave my head – and it takes up too much space. Deleting it doesn't seem possible._

_John worries me. I am firmly convinced that he has not yet forgiven me for faking my death. I had believed that he would have understood why I did it after I had explained it the first time. It seems it is not the case in the light of the following:_

_He no longer tells me I'm brilliant as often as he used to do._

_He makes sure to place himself at least fifty centimetres away from me – this also occurs when we are walking._

_He sometimes watches me and clenches his lips – when this occurs, he leaves the room shortly after, often within two minutes and sixteen seconds._

_He doesn't correct me if I do or say something that later proves to have been impolite._

_He no longer demands me to eat; he simply places food in front of me._

_It would seem that he has not grasped the danger he, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson were in. As much as I do not care for repetitions, I may have to explain the severity of the situation to him again. This will have to be thorough and done in a manner that ensures his understanding._

John looked at it in disbelieve. He most certainly remembered that rather strange conversation where Sherlock calmly had explained the speciality of every single hit man that had been targeting them, and how he, Greg and Mrs. Hudson would have been killed, what guns would have been used, what bullet holes they would have left. It had been somewhat morbid actually, and John had scarcely avoided witnessing it all demonstrated on a dead pig.

It made some sort of sense now, except from the fact that Sherlock had clearly misinterpreted his behaviour. John had been acting that way because he was trying his best to ignore the feelings that had decided to surface.

He flipped to the next leaf that was dated some three weeks later and read on.

_This is getting disturbing. I would have assumed that by now John had grasped why I had to do what I did._

_However, I find his actions haven't changed, and it would seem that nothing I do helps. Also I have found myself being increasingly attracted to his company, more than usually that is. I have a strong urge to reach out and touch him. It is getting more and more distracting with each day that passes._

_This morning I woke up after an unusual dream. I do not care for dreams, and I even found myself having what, to others, is a normal, bodily reaction. I, however, have not experienced that for some years._

_This seems to be something I have to find a solution to before long; otherwise I might be unable to keep John's company._

"Bloody idiot," John sighed. Knowing Sherlock, the solution he was hoping to find wasn't something that involved the two of them getting involved sexually.

John read on with a guilty conscience, page after page of observations about himself, detailed descriptions of the first time they had had sex (and practically every other sexual encounter), what John liked – and what he didn't like. John didn't know whether he should be flattered or concerned. It would have seemed like he had been turned into a science project had it not been for the small things. Like when Sherlock described in great detail what John looked like when he slept after sex. Here Sherlock had added peculiar sentences such as  _'Humans do not glow'_ ,  _'It calms my thoughts to observe John sleeping'_  and  _'After sex, watching him makes my mind as clear as cocaine'_. John giggled a little, despite the obviously bizarre descriptions throughout the 'book', it gave him a warm feeling in his stomach. How could he have thought Sherlock had only looked at him as an experiment. Something to be observed? Surely. But an experiment? No.

The last entry was from the previous night, seemingly written before John had gotten back from his little meeting with Mycroft. Reading it made John feel cold. It described how Sherlock was afraid John had deserted him and how he had come to a point, where he wasn't able to see a meaning in things when John wasn't there. He complained about being uninterested in an otherwise interesting murder case. The page ended with something that made John open his eyes wide. Not that he really had any doubt, but it seemed like something Sherlock would never really admit to – not even to himself.

It read:

_From careful observations of John, and of the effect he has on me, I have to deduce that I love him, and that I am willing to do what it takes to ensure that he will not leave me._

"So, you found it." Sherlock's deep voice came from the doorway and John looked up with a start. He didn't seem angry, more nervous actually.

"I had rather hoped you didn't," he said as he dropped into the sofa.

John didn't know what to say. He glanced at the clock that told him it was 11:23 am. He had completely lost track of the world.

"Sherlock, I didn't… I didn't mean to pry," he said as he got up and walked over to the detective on the sofa and seated himself. He held up the book and looked at Sherlock,

"This-," he said and leaned over to place a kiss on Sherlock's forehead, "I love you, you mad git." He smiled softly at Sherlock, who visibly relaxed and returned the smile.


	16. Brother dear, do you not observe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock!

**Brother dear, do you not observe?  
** Sherlock's PoV

Sherlock carefully watched a small drop of sweat travel down the heated skin stretched out over John's spine. He was fast asleep on his stomach; stretched out naked on the bed while his body caught the last glimpses of sunlight that travelled in through the windows he had claimed needed to be polished for more than a month now. His upper body was slowly rising and falling as he took in deep breaths. John's face was turned away from Sherlock, but Sherlock had seen it often enough to know just how he looked while sleeping, and how the soft, orange-red sunlight played upon his cheeks and made his hair look golden.

Sherlock reached out his hand and let a finger follow the drop of sweat, barely touching the soft skin. He hadn't really wanted John to find that book, not consciously anyway. But as he was lying there beside him, he was glad that he had. This had to be as close to bliss as one could come without the use of chemicals – well, technically that was a lie, since living organisms are ruled by chemistry, and Sherlock knew what chemicals were in play when it came to things like this. The post-coital bliss he was now feeling and the warm sensation that was building up in his stomach as he was lying there watching John sleep was nothing but chemicals. But he didn't really care right now.

He rolled unto his back and stared into the ceiling of John's bedroom – no, their bedroom – and allowed a small smile to spread across his face before he got off the bed and took his clothes back on, after all he had things to do, and this mornings excursion to Bart's had been informative.

As he passed the kitchen he shot a quick glance at the fridge, presumably John would complain about it still being empty. But if John were to force food down his throat, Sherlock preferred it to be Chinese and not some hastily made pasta-dish. Not that John couldn't cook, but he could hardly claim to be a master chef. Besides, if John cooked, it would involve both shopping, packing out grocery bags and cooking itself – every activity being one that took John's attention away from… Well, Sherlock.

John's jacket was hanging in the hallway next to Sherlock's coat. With ease he found the wallet. If John had the terribly stupid idea to go out and get some groceries, he might just give it up if he couldn't find his wallet.

From his own coat pocket Sherlock retrieved an evidence bag containing one of the nails that had pinned the departed Samuel Michaels to the wall and returned to the drawing room. On the way to the desk, he hid the wallet in the sofa.

Sherlock smirked as he sat down by the desk, really the Yard should be more careful with their evidence – idiots. Or rather, a tired Lestrade should be more careful.

John's footsteps appeared on the stairs and went into the kitchen, and then the refrigerator opened,

"We still don't have any food." From the corner of his eye, he could see John staring into the open fridge that was gapingly empty.

"Mmm," Sherlock said in reply. Even though he had expected this, it shouldn't really come as a shock to John that there was still no food in the flat – the last attempt to retrieve any had resulted in John being kidnapped by Mycroft.

A rustling of shoes and a jacket came from the hallway, making Sherlock force his eyes away from the nail. It seemed that John was heading out. Sherlock frowned, this was not the intended solution to the lack of food – and he most certainly did not want a repeat of the last time John had left.

"Where are you going?" he asked as John started rummaging for his wallet.

"In case you didn't hear me before, we're still out of food, and I don't think I've had anything to eat since yesterday." John shot him a sceptical glance, "And the same goes for you I suspect – if it's not been longer."

Sherlock snorted, he hadn't needed food, he had needed John and to ensure that he wasn't going to disappear. The latter seemed highly improbable for the time being, but there was always the risk of John being kidnapped again.

"We could just order in," he said while he watched with some concern as John found the wallet underneath a sofa cushion and made a pleased sound. Sherlock had rather hoped he wouldn't look there.

"We could, but I'm going to the market to buy the basics, we have nothing at all you know." John gave Sherlock a smile and headed back towards the hallway. Ignoring John, he turned his focus back to the nail.

But John was probably right after all. Even though food wasn't really a necessity for Sherlock, he had to admit that a hungry John was not particularly pleasant company, so having something in the flat for him was probably not a bad idea.

"Bring your gun," Sherlock said without looking up.

John stopped in the doorway and turned around with a puzzled expression.

"Just in case," Sherlock said and studied the nail with excessive interest.

"Don't be ridicules," John said in a teasing voice before he left and closed the door behind him. To Sherlock's content he heard John go upstairs before his steps again made their way back down and disappeared with the closing of the front door.

Sherlock turned his full focus back to the nail in his hand and the laptop. It seemed that the nails had been custom-made, not some that could just be bought everywhere. They were particularly well made; it was definitely not an amateur job, but made by someone professional and someone who took pride in his work. If the smith could be located, it would certainly make it a lot easier to locate whoever was behind the murder. Tedious really, but he should probably text Lestrade.

The stairs squeaked, but it wasn't John or Mrs. Hudson – or Lestrade for that matter. It was… Sherlock shot the closed door a quick glance before he clenched his lips and started studying the nail as if it held the answer to every unsolved question in the entire universe.

The door was carefully opened and the clearing of a throat breached the silence,

"So, I see everything is fine in Neverland." The voice made Sherlock's stomach twist with anger,

"What do you want,  _Mycroft_?" he said without moving his eyes from the nail.

"I have just come to pay you a visit, dear brother; to see if everything is going well," Mycroft drawled and entered the flat uninvited. He seated himself in John's chair with a sigh and Sherlock could feel his eyes boring into him, "I am, to be perfectly honest, a little worried about you - more than usually."

Sherlock demonstrably ignored his older brother by standing up and retrieving his violin. He sat down in his chair and began tuning it and plucking random notes from it like it was a strange, little guitar.

"Meaning?" Sherlock finally condescended into asking.

"My dear brother, do you not observe? It would seem that you have now got a weak spot. The two of you have finally decided on being a couple," Mycroft said and leaned forward in the chair, supporting his, to Sherlock's eye heavier, weight on the umbrella.

"I'm well aware of that. And it's easy to observe that we are a couple really, any idiot could do it," Sherlock replied his brother in as indifferent a voice as he could muster.

"Yes, any idiot, as you put it, can  _see_  that fact. I have  _observed_  you, but it seems you haven't. Tell me, Sherlock, how long can you keep him alive?" Sherlock jerked his head up and stared coldly at his brother, he didn't like this intrusion, and he definitely didn't like the insinuations.

"John won't be pleased to see you here after yesterday," Sherlock replied and turned his attention back to the violin.

"Don't worry, I know exactly how long I've got before he returns – and it was only you I came to see. As I presume John told you, I worry about the two of you." Mycroft leaned back in John's chair and sighed, "You endanger each other – and you are, after all, my only brother. Think of what mommy would say if you got hurt."

Sherlock snorted, this had nothing to do with mommy, "Your only real concern is that I might threaten national security, everything else is secondary," he said and locked eyes with Mycroft, who's eyebrows had now risen to his forehead. Something was a little out of the ordinary, and a small hint of true concern seemed to flash over his brother's face.

"Caring is not an advantage, as you surely must have learned by now. And therefore I am naturally concerned about you… And John, he's a good and loyal man, you wouldn't want to get him killed out of loyalty to you, would you." Mycroft carefully scanned Sherlock's face, but Sherlock desperately tried to suppress any signs of emotions. Perhaps it was true that Mycroft cared about him enough to wanting to keep him alive, and he did like John, Sherlock knew as much as that. But again, who didn't like John? The anchor of humanity in Sherlock's eyes.

He knew that Mycroft was grasping at straws coming to talk to him alone, he had long ago learned that the easy way to get Sherlock to do something was to go through John, and now that had failed. But why he was so keen on getting him and John to end it was beyond him, previously he hadn't had any real objections on Sherlock's friendship with John. Sherlock carefully watched his brother watch him, and then realisation dawned on him.

"Did you enjoy it?" he asked and observed as Mycroft gained a confused expression upon his face.

"I'm sorry?" Mycroft said and shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat, "I'm not enjoying doing this, if that's what you mean."

"You know perfectly well that this conversation – or the one you had with John yesterday – is not what I'm referring to." Sherlock send his older brother a scrutinizing look before resuming plucking on the violin strings.

"I'm sorry, but I do not know to what you are referring then."

"The CCTV," Sherlock said and struck a particularly annoying tone from one of the strings. Mycroft didn't wince, but sat with an unmoving face, his eyes locked on the umbrella in his hands.

"I will not deny that I found it… Interesting," he finally said and tightened his lips, "But really, an alley. You managed to get yourself – and John – hauled down to New Scotland Yard, you're careless, you always have been, and John and I are the ones paying the price." He sighed and looked at Sherlock, "I know you think I've got some other hidden agenda, but the truth is I only want to ensure that both you and John live long and happy lives – and it seems that the best way to do that is to keep you apart."

Mycroft stood up and started walking towards the door. Halfway there he stopped and turned around to give his younger brother a firm glance,

"Sherlock, I know you love him-" Sherlock opened his mouth in protest, "No, Sherlock, it's obvious to everyone who looks closely, and I will admit to having grown fond of him myself. But you and I both know that this little love story will not have a happy ending," Mycroft said in a condescending tone, "You cannot blame me for wanting to keep the two of you alive." He turned around and disappeared down the stairs. Sherlock stared at the vanishing point. He did recognise that Mycroft had a point, he had already thought that through months ago, and then reconsidered last night when he thought John was going to leave him. This conversation only added to his suppressed concerns about the future and the possible outcomes. Something had to be done to bring it under some sort of control.

He got up and retrieved the bow. Staring out the window he idly forced warped sounds from the wooden instrument in his hand as the streetlights got turned on.

John appeared down on the street and Sherlock watched him carefully while he subconsciously started making recognisable tunes on the violin, tunes that, as John was heard entering the front door, turned into Beethoven's Moonlight sonata. Sherlock hadn't really thought about it until now, but John tended to leave him alone with his thoughts when he played that or similar pieces.

As John entered the flat he didn't say anything, only the rustling of shopping bags and footsteps was heard from the kitchen, accompanied by the opening and closing of the fridge and cupboards. After a while the sounds subsided and Sherlock became aware of John's reflection in the window watching him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all that's written so far. Chapter 17 will be up as soon as possible, but since life holds no guarantees, I cannot say exactly when it is finished.


	17. Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from, BBC Sherlock – rights belong to the creators of this show.

**Smoke**  
John's PoV

He hadn't really felt like interrupting, from his experience nothing remotely meaningful came from talking to Sherlock when he was playing that kind of tune on his violin. The music always made John feel sad, and whenever he heard Sherlock play it, he wanted to know what was going on inside of him, but he didn't dare to ask.

In stead John had watched Sherlock silently for a while before he had taken a slice of toast and gone off to bed, still with the sad tunes of the violin ringing throughout the flat.

John was awoken around 2:30 in the morning when Sherlock entered the bedroom. He heard him get undressed and did his best to pretend to be sleeping as Sherlock crept under the duvet and pressed himself against his back. He could feel the ragged, hot breath against the back of his head and Sherlock's arm snaking around his waist, pressing him closer.

He wasn't entirely comfortable with Sherlock using him for comfort without telling him why he was in need of being comforted in the first place. He wondered what had let to this, and admittedly he could think of a couple of things during these last few days that could be the reason why Sherlock was acting all strange. But it was still very unsettling.

"I'm sorry for everything," Sherlock murmured into the back of his head. The words were barely audible, and for a few seconds John doubted whether it was just his imagination.

"Things haven't gone quite as I assumed they would." The almost non-existing words caused John's mind to freeze, the only thing going through it again and again was what the bloody hell had happened while he was out doing the shopping.

After a while he felt Sherlock relax behind him, presumably he had fallen asleep, but John wasn't completely sure, so he kept acting like he was still sleeping. Time seemed to have taken on a life of its own, and for almost two hours they were lying still like that, the only movement in the room came from the changing numbers on the digital alarm clock. He blinked for a second and was then forced to open his eyes again due to the intense buzzing of the alarm clock.

Sherlock was still sleeping next to him, for once looking like his mind was resting instead of being constantly on the verge of overloading. John slipped silently out from under the duvet so he wouldn't wake the man next to him. As much as he didn't want to, he had to go to the surgery today – but at least it was only half a day he had to be there.

While John got ready for work there was no sounds from upstairs. He felt pleased that, despite it all, Sherlock's body had finally decided to get some serious sleep. Something he had come to consider a rare happening.

The day at the surgery wasn't nearly as boring as he had feared, and he could, in part, thank an elderly gentleman for this. The man had come storming into the surgery with wild eyes and demanded to see a doctor at once (no-one at the surgery was familiar with the name of the doctor he was trying to find), as he had eyed John he had run towards him and nearly send him to the floor. It turned out, when the police came to pick him up, that the man had come into a habit of attacking male doctors due to dementia and a vague memory of his late wife once having had an affair with one. It was rather sad actually, the effects of that disease.

Other than that episode, the day was uneventful. Literally – he hadn't even gotten a single text from Sherlock. He had kept checking and rechecking his phone, this kind of odd radio-silence was a bit unsettling, even if he sometimes did wish that Sherlock would stop texting him every five-bloody-minutes. Not hearing a single beep from his phone was even worse.

When John got back to the flat he was determined to figure out what had sent Sherlock out of course this time. In stead he was greeted by Lestrade, who were sitting in Sherlok's chair and looking utterly confused.

"Hi Greg, are you okay?" John said as he entered and scanned the room for any signs of Sherlock.

"John, hi," Lestrade answered and rubbed the back of his neck, "You don't, by any chance, know where Sherlock went?"

"Erm, I assumed he was in the flat since you're here," John said and raised a brow, this was perhaps the one scenario he hadn't thought about coming home to. Not that Sherlock going out without telling came as a surprise, it was the presence of Lestrade in his place that was a bit unexpected.

"Well, he was. He texted and asked me to come over here because he had found out something related to a case, next thing I know he's out the door. I've been sitting here for more than an hour." Lestrade looked like a man on the brink of giving up.

"Did he say anything about where he was going?" John said as he walked into the kitchen. Now seemed like a good time for a cup of tea if he was to stop himself from trying to call Sherlock. Presumably the man was doing something he didn't want his help with. So it seemed that both he and Lestrade could use a good cuppa right now.

"Well, not exactly." Lestrade had made his way into the kitchen and John felt his stare.

"Want a cup of tea?" John didn't wait for an answer; in stead he found two cups and placed them on the counter. The room remained silent until the kettle snapped them both back to reality when it started to boil.

John threw a teabag in each cup, placed them on an empty spot on the kitchen table and seated himself in a chair. Lestrade drew out another chair and placed himself opposite of John,

"He gave me the name of a smith he said must have made some iron nails that were used at the murder scene I had called him out to this Saturday. Then he said he had some urgent matters to attend to, told me it was related to an ongoing investigation of his own and off he went; you know him." Lestrade shot John an apologetic glance and took a sip of the hot tea before continuing, "He just asked me, well ordered me really, to stay behind and tell you. I thought in the light of resent events it was best to do as he said." Lestrade sighed.

"Why didn't he just text me?" John asked, knowing that Lestrade probably didn't hold the answer to that question.

"Well, it may have something to do with the fact that he left his phone behind."

" _What!_ " John couldn't believe this, Sherlock leaving without his phone was not a good sign, "And you had no objections to this? Didn't ask any questions – bloody Hell Greg, you're a detective, and you know just how attached Sherlock is to his phone!" At this point John was almost standing up, sending Lestrade an accusing glance.

"Wow, hold your horses – he said it had something to do with him not wanting to be tracked, it made sense. And I did tell him that if he was dealing with people who could hack into a system and track him like that, then he shouldn't deal with them without the police, but he said the police only slowed him down – and that's a nice rephrasing I might add." Lestrade had his hands raised in a defensive gesture, and John fell back into the chair.

It was hard to blame Lestrade for letting Sherlock take off like that, because Sherlock tended to do what he wanted, when he wanted. Even though he sometimes looked like he was listening and did as he was told, he only did so when he himself saw some benefit from it. Like a bloody cat, ever so pleasant when it wanted food or to be scratched on the belly, but looked at you like you were and idiot if you told it no and it didn't feel like stopping.

John sighed and rubbed his face, where on earth could Sherlock be, and why did he want to ensure he couldn't be tracked via his phone?

Realisation dawned on him, off course it had something to do with bloody Mycroft, Sherlock wanted to go under the radar of Mycroft Holmes, the British Government. This left two possibilities – either Sherlock was going somewhere he didn't want Mycroft to know or he was going to pay Mycroft a visit and didn't want him to know he was coming. John had no doubt that Sherlock would be capable of avoiding getting caught by the CCTV.

"He didn't by any chance mention his brother?" John looked up at Lestrade, feeling a bit desperate.

"His brother, Mycroft? No, he didn't. Why?" Lestrade sent him a puzzled look.

A small cough came from the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. Sherlock watched the two men with an unreadable expression,

"Well, Lestrade, it seems John is more fitting for your job than yourself. Obviously he is better at deducing my intentions," Sherlock said with a wry smile.

"Sherlock, what have you done?" John looked at him as he stood there looking slightly pleased with himself, something that could be either a good or extremely bad sign.

"That is for me to know and for you to find out, but not until later." Sherlock strode past them into the drawing room, judging from the sounds that followed he had thrown himself onto the sofa and probably assumed his thinking position with stippled fingers underneath his chin.

"Why didn't you just leave me a note instead of leaving Lestrade behind like this?" John called after Sherlock, he felt annoyed by Sherlock's attitude right now.

"He was here anyway, didn't want to waste the paper – and after all he's harder to overlook than a note," Sherlock called back.

John glanced at Lestrade, who returned it with an exasperated expression written all over his face, "Maybe I should leave you two," he said and got up, "Thank you for the tea."

"Bye," John answered and got up as well.

"Call me if it should, you know, be necessary." Lestrade shot John a concerned look before disappearing down the stairs.

John went into the drawing room and sat down in his chair, staring into space. This really wasn't ideal at all, and he didn't like the thought of what Sherlock could have been up to.

"You're thinking," Sherlock said in a dry voice, "Stop it. Just because you are better at playing a detective than Lestrade, it doesn't necessarily mean your deductions are right."

"Then tell me what you've been doing, if I'm so hopeless at deducing. And please tell me you haven't done something stupid." John watched Sherlock actively ignoring him for a while before he finally spoke,

"I told you, all will be revealed in its own time." A smug smile spread across Sherlock's face, "And besides, as you know, I'm never stupid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may, by now, have guessed that this story is coming close to an end – even though it's listed as drama, it's not 'Days of our Lives' after all.
> 
> Comments make me very happy, so please leave one :-)
> 
> Also: thanks for the kudos to this story :-)


	18. Mortality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not fly, I do not breathe under water, I do not own BBC's Sherlock, I do not profit on the basis of BBC's Sherlock. Rights belongs to those who hold those rights ;-)
> 
> A/N: Ta da, a lot faster this time :-)

**Mortality  
** John's PoV

John was starting to become truly concerned. Sherlock had been lying on the sofa for several hours; in fact he had been lying there without uttering a single word, or moving, for so long that John actually had checked if he was still alive. He was. He had opened his eyes and stared at John with a penetrating, annoyed gaze that practically had screamed 'stop worrying, you are an idiot.'

The sun was setting outside and John decided to turn on the telly just to see if anything had happened. It turned out nothing remotely interesting had taken place in the last day or two.

"John, you need a shower."

John turned his head and watched Sherlock who were still lying as if no words had been uttered.

"A shower? Sherlock, since when do you decide when I shower? Besides, I had one this morning." John turned his attention back to the telly and turned the volume up a bit. Now he was just plain out annoyed. It was one thing that Sherlock had been acting all strange (well, stranger), and that he wouldn't say what he had been up to (something that never vouched for something good, and seldom something legal), but John was determined that Sherlock had no business telling him when to shower.

"You need to change clothes anyway," Sherlock said as-a-matter-of-factly, "So you might as well wash off the smell of the surgery while you're at it."

John looked at Sherlock and furrowed his brows, what the bloody Hell was the man talking about,

"Why would I need to change clothes? What I'm wearing is perfectly fine."

"Don't be obtuse, go upstairs, take a shower and put on your best clothes." Sherlock sounded exasperated and vaguely waved his hand in the direction of the door to the hallway.

"I'm being obtuse?" John could hear the annoyance in his own voice, and he was well aware that he was on the brink of being childish. But he felt like Sherlock's behaviour justified his own.

"Tell me, John, have you turned into a parrot? Stop repeating what I say and just do it." Sherlock sighed before visibly closing off for the surroundings and any further objections.

John decided to give up and got to his feet, demonstrably throwing the remote onto the coffee table with a loud bang. Sherlock didn't even move a muscle.

As the hot water hit his body, John wondered what Sherlock had been doing. Even though he clearly had been up to something, he probably hadn't hurt Mycroft. Otherwise he would have said so by now – wouldn't he?

John switched off the water and dried himself with a towel. If Sherlock hadn't hurt Mycroft, perhaps he had been out obstructing some of Mycroft's plans for world dominance. Perhaps he had even done something he was able to show John. It was plausible.

John found a nice suit that wasn't to worn and got dressed. Maybe Sherlock had been whispering things to people, things that would ensure Mycroft's fall from power. This seemed more likely; Sherlock could be revengeful.

John walked downstairs and was about to open the door to the drawing room when a gigantic note taped to the door met him. It didn't say much, only:

_Angelo's, come quickly._

_Could be dangerous._

_SH_

John huffed; he hadn't even heard Sherlock leave.

He decided that he might as well play along so he put on his jacket and shoes and headed out the door.

Reaching Angelo's he started to think he had misunderstood the note somehow. The place looked closed down. Actually it was closed down. A big sign on the door told him that the place was closed for the night. He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. Where was he supposed to go then? Sometimes Sherlock tended to forget that his mind didn't work the same way as Sherlock's. He began to look around to see if there should be a sign somewhere, something that could tell him where to go next.

He turned around again as he heard a key turn in the door behind him. Angelo's smiling face greeted him,

"There you are, come in, come in." The man waved happily at him and John shot him a brief smile before passing him and entering the restaurant.

The place was empty except for Sherlock who were sitting at a table in the middle of the room watching him. John shook his head and walked over to sit on the empty chair opposite of Sherlock.

"What are we doing here?" he said as he watched Sherlock's dead serious face.

"Dinner," he simply said and nodded at Angelo, who disappeared into the kitchen.

"Yes, I figured that. But why is the restaurant completely empty?" John was shifting between being amused and concerned. He really didn't like this behaviour from Sherlock.

"Because I didn't want to listen to a lot of people chatting away about their boring little lives, I wanted to eat." Sherlock's eyes bored into John, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"We might as well get this over with," he said with an exasperated sigh. John felt his blood drain from his face.

"John- "

"Yes Sherlock," John said and straightened his back.

"Oh do shut up and let me speak," Sherlock made an annoyed grimace, "John, we have to accept that we are not going to be together forever."

This definitely didn't sound promising. John cleared his throat, "What – what are you saying? I thought we cleared that up." He looked at Sherlock who by now was looking like he felt trapped in a room with an imbecile. John was painfully aware that technically that was true, compared to Sherlock he was an imbecile.

Sherlock sighed,

"Really John, you're a doctor, you should know it's a biological imperative – we are not going to be together forever," he stated.

John blinked at him, of all the things he had thought about today; this really wasn't one of them.

"What, are you breaking it off already, are you setting an expiration date on us?" He stared at the dark-haired man in utter confusion.

Sherlock rolled his eyes,

"Usually you're a clever idiot."

John threw his hands in the air, this was just great.

"Thanks I guess – not really helping you know," he sneered at Sherlock who was now looking both annoyed and a bit frustrated,

"Fine, if I have to spell it out for you: since we are both living creatures, we are eventually going to die. Since you're the only one I could imagine myself dying with, I- "

John cut him off,

"Sherlock, are you saying we are in danger? Is Moriarty's web still out there?" John had thought that was all behind them, but that would explain them eating dinner in an empty restaurant and Sherlock leaving the flat without his phone.

Sherlock's eyes went wide and for a moment he looked confused and sad,

"No, John, I'm… I'm trying to…" he said before he seemed to somehow run out of words. He cleared his throat and gained a determined expression as he took one hand off the table and searched for something in his pocket.

He then placed a small, black box on the table.

John felt his eyebrows rise in disbelieve as he stared at the box,

"Sherlock…" he said in a low voice and looked at the man opposite of him. Sherlock had gained a slightly pink shade and kept his eyes fixed upon an empty spot on the table in front of him.

"Sherlock is this…" John gestured towards the box.

Sherlock lifted his eyes and kept his gaze fixed upon John,

"Yes, well as I said, you are the only one I can imagine myself dying with, I… And I want to make sure no-one else thinks that they can have that privilege."

"Well, when you put it like that." John smiled.

"And besides, Mycroft was getting on my nerves. He may be many things, my brother, but there are still things he does respect – marriage, technically civil partnerships, is one of them. So I figured this would be an effective way to get him to stop bothering us," Sherlock said and sounded annoyed, but somewhere John caught a hint of amusement.

"So that's why you left without your phone?" John chuckled slightly; everything had to be done the hard way when it came to Sherlock it would seem.

"Off course, he would have tried to stop me otherwise. Now open the box." The last words were added with the same enthusiasm as that of a child who is about to give its parents a homemade clay ashtray for Christmas.

John too the box from the table and opened it carefully. Inside was a plain ring, the colour however was a little indeterminable, it wasn't quite gold, nor was it silver. Rather it was a warm, subtle mixture of the two.

"It matches your hair," Sherlock said and leaned forward, snatching the ring from the box.

"Doctor John Watson, will you- "

"Hamish," John interrupted.

"What?" Sherlock looked at him.

"You forgot 'Hamish'" John answered with a smirk.

"Really, you think that it's important." Sherlock shot him a disbelieving look.

"You of all people should know the importance of details." John smiled, he knew he wasn't being kind, but right now he couldn't help it – it was definitely the easiest way to deal with this.

"Fine. Doctor John  _Hamish_  Watson will you enter into civil partnership with me?" Sherlock stared at him, looking like if he for once didn't know the answer to an important question.

"Yes, Sherlock, I will." John gave Sherlock a warm smile and felt his stomach unknotting itself completely for the first time in days.

Sherlock slipped the ring on John's finger, dug down into his own pocket and found a similar ring that he slipped on his own.

"Well, that was nice." Sherlock said and started turning towards the kitchen.

"Sherlock," John said and slowly dragged the other man's attention back to him, "Sherlock I want to be sure you're not just doing this because of your brother – I don't have to be married," he said.

"I assure you, I'm not. As I said, you're the one I want to die with," he said before starting to turn towards the kitchen again.

"Sherlock…"

"Yes, John, I mean it," Sherlock looked at him with exasperation.

" You dimwit, I wasn't going to ask you that again," John said.

He rose slightly from his chair and reached over the table to grab the collar of Sherlock's shirt.

"John, what are you- " John cut the other man off with his lips. He felt how Sherlock first stiffened before relaxing into the kiss and let a hand travel to the back of John's head, pressing his lips closer to John's. John parted his lips and let the tip of his tongue brush against Sherlock's lower lip. He could feel how the other man elicited a soft moan into his mouth and how he opened up his mouth to invite John's tongue inside. He could feel the soft, wet hotness of Sherlock's tongue and he had to let out a groan.

Sherlock broke the kiss and started to press small kisses against John's jaw.

"Oh Jesus, Sherlock," John sighed before he became aware of the fact that they were in a restaurant and he was leaned over a table in an awkward position. As much as he liked the food at Angelo's, he actually didn't want to be there right this moment.

Sherlock withdrew himself and looked into John's eyes. John could feel his heart stop, this was real, this was actually the man he was going to spend whatever little time he had on the planet with.

"John, I love you," Sherlock whispered before closing the small gap between their lips once again. Softly he pressed himself against John's mouth and his tongue slit over the seam of his lips, begging to enter. John parted his lips to let him in and Sherlock's tongue seemed determined to conquer his mouth. John let out a moan and breathed heavily into Sherlock's mouth,

"I love you too," he said, "Are you really hungry?"

"Not in the slightest. You?" Sherlock said breathless.

"No."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so technically this is the end. Practically there's an epilogue… Well, I say epilogue when it should actually be two epilogues.
> 
> If you have been craving for something strange, something Mycrofty, then 'Epilogue part I' is for you. If, however, you crave for some smut… Yeah, I've thought about you too ;-)  
> I don't know exactly when they will be up, but 'Epilogue part I' should be up within a week.
> 
> For those of you who are familiar with Sartre and other existentialists: I do know I've taken some great liberties, but if I hadn't, this would have been a really depressing fic.
> 
> Ad: I've recently started writing another fic called 'Painted Lemons', it's a casefic and it's not really Johnlock, but I hope you will check it out :-)


	19. Epilogue Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not a horse, just as I'm not the owner of BBC Sherlock. Nor do I profit from being a horse – or from this stuff.
> 
> Okay, for those of you who are hard-core Johnlockers – you probably don't want to read this. But I couldn't help it; this idea just sprang to mind and almost created itself.
> 
> This is set two months after Mortality (aka chapter 18).

**Epilogue Part I**  
Mycroft's PoV

" _You!" the blond-haired man looked at him from across the desk, disbelieving._

_He stood up, placed his hands on the old wood and leaned a little forward over it, staring straight into his eyes. Mycroft gulped. John could be rather intimidating, fortunately Mycroft's years of dealing with some of the most dangerous people in the world had made him able to hide any trace of fear from his features, he was in complete control of his body._

_John's actions did make him rather uncomfortable though, and he had no idea as to what had made the man act like this._

" _You want me, I can tell. I can tell from the way you twirl that umbrella of yours around, I can tell from the way you twitch your lips slightly when you think I'm not seeing. You forget I was in Afghanistan, you forget that I've known you brother for ages – you forget that I have learned," John said and furrowed his brows, drawing in a deep breath._

_The blond-haired man made a swift movement with both hands and cleared the content of the desk unto the floor. It would take Mycroft ages – or rather it would take Anthea ages – to get everything back_ exactly _as it had been before. And Mycroft didn't really understand why John had to do it, or why he just couldn't leave it alone – the feelings that is._

_With a sudden movement the blond-haired man – his brother's_ fiancé _– had tossed himself across the desk and pressed a firm kiss against Mycroft's mouth. Mycroft groaned with surprise, this was very unexpected indeed._

" _You daft git, why didn't you say something, it's you, it's always been you!" John moaned against his mouth, and Mycroft felt every single drop of blood disappear from his brain, flooding like a tidal wave towards his groin. He reciprocated the kiss with fierce intensity, pressing his tongue into the mouth of the blond-haired man and just tasted him, taking him in like he had wanted to from the very start, ever since their first meeting in that warehouse, even more so since he saw the surveillance footage of John pushed up against the wall with his_ dear _brother pushing himself into that beautiful, strong man._

" _This is exactly why I have always considered you my archenemy," Sherlock's voice drawled from the door._

_Mycroft forced himself free of John's mouth and tried to focus on his brother who was leaning against the doorframe._

" _What… are you doing here?" He managed to say, barely having enough air for the few words._

" _Oh! I followed John here," Sherlock said as he raised his eyebrows in a this-doesn't-surprise-me-in-the-slightest gesture._

" _What do you mean by 'this is why you have always considered me your archenemy'?" Mycroft said bewildered. He had never before taken anyone from his brother, let alone wanted to._

" _Because I see everything, brother dear, I see everything and I know everything, I even know things I don't know. I've seen this from the very beginning – since I love John, I accepted it, I accepted it because he was mine for a while," Sherlock said in a monotonous matter-of-fact tone._

" _How can you…" Mycroft looked confused at his brother, then he shifted his gaze to John, who had been awfully quiet. But John was gone. In his place was now a bright crack looking at him with an evil, empty grin._

" _I knew this would happen too. If you had not fancied him, he would have never turned into that," Sherlock said as he waved his hand towards the crack._

" _How can this be my fault?" Mycroft said, partly to Sherlock and partly to the crack._

" _Because, brother dear, you are the reason why universes collapse, you and you alone. And I'm here to stop you from ever doing it again. Unfortunately this means I have to sacrifice John here."_

" _How can_ I  _be the reason for that?" Mycroft said in a desperate tone as he made a small nod towards the happily evil crack._

" _Your diet!" Sherlock exclaimed._

" _My diet?" Mycroft looked quizzically at his brother._

" _You diet ruins everything – it even ruined our menu."_

" _Your menu – Sherlock what are you talking about?"_

" _John felt sorry for you, because you couldn't eat what we initially planed for the party, so we had to change everything." Sherlock gave him a harsh stare,_ " _You could at least stop groaning…"_

" _I'm not groaning!" Mycroft nearly yelled._

" _You. Are. Groaning. It's_ annoying! Mycroft!" Sherlock was leaning over him and staring at him.

Mycroft shook his head. Apparently he had fallen asleep in his office-chair, and the dream more than indicated a few problems. First of all he had to stop watching Doctor Who, he had never thought that kind of imagination healthy, but this was bordering on perverse. Second of all he had to get rid of that CCTV footage.

"Did you hear what I said?" Sherlock looked insistently down at him, "I said that because of your diet we, or rather John, can't have the menu he wants for the party after the ceremony. So either you call him and tell him that you are off the diet for now, or you say you are unable to attend." Sherlock moved away a little to give his brother some space.

"What? Yes of course, I don't keep my diet on festive occasions," Mycroft said, a little perplexed.

"I can tell," Sherlock retorted before spinning around on his heel and walked out of the office.

Mycroft watched the door slam shut and wondered what had made his brother pay him a visit in person just to deliver that insult.

After a while he reached the conclusion that Sherlock, for once, probably only did it because he wanted to ensure that John got things the way he wanted without too much trouble. And to Mycroft's experience a personal visit was always better in order to get through with your agenda. Speaking of which, there was some urgent matters he should attend to – after all, the American election was near, so really, he had no time to be sleeping at all.

A couple of hours later he was disturbed when his secretary rang him.

"Yes?" he said as he picked it up.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes," the voice at the other end began, "But I saw it fitting to check before I confirmed it."

"Confirmed what?" Mycroft inquired.

"Your reservation of The Royal Suite at The Lanesborough Hotel two weeks from Saturday."

Mycroft checked his wallet, and sure enough, his credit card was missing. Trust Sherlock to pickpocket him in order to make a reservation for one of the most expensive suites in London for his first night as a married man. He sighed, Sherlock had always been trouble, but to be fair, this was one of the less expensive occasions. The estimated total costs of this would probably be just about £9,000.

"Sir?" His secretary sounded nervous.

"Oh yes, I'd almost forgotten about that," Mycroft answered.

"Forgotten, but Sir, the reservation was made less than two hours ago."

"I had other things on my mind, just confirm the reservation," he said before hanging up the phone.

He sighed and decided that in spite of his unhealthy interest in his little brother's soon-to-be husband, he was a good brother after all. He still didn't truly believe in a happy ending for the two of them. That only happened in fairytales, and the life of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson was everything but a fairytale. But after realising that nothing was to be done about the two of them, he had to make due with increasing the surveillance.

Controlling an entire nation was apparently a lot easier than controlling his brother.


	20. Epilogue Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't fly, I don't have orange hair (unfortunately), and I don't own, nor do I profit from, BBC's Sherlock...

**Epilogue Part II  
** Sherlock's PoV

"Sherlock, ouch! If I'm not able to see anything, you should be a little more careful!" John exclaimed.

"Stop whining, you just bumped your foot. Besides, we're here." Sherlock put the key card into the door and opened it. The suite was acceptable, and he had no doubt that John would love it. Well, at least until he asked about who paid for it.

"Stop right there," Sherlock said as soon as John had entered the suite. He turned around and closed the door behind them before he walked up and stood close behind John. He gave the shorter man's upper arms a gentle squeeze and breathed in the smell of his hair. He sighed, this part of the day was what he had been looking forward to, what had made him capable of acting at least a bit nice throughout the dinner. If he hadn't, there would have been a good chance that John would have been so annoyed with him that he wouldn't have been any fun now.

"Sherlock when are you going to take this blindfold off me?" John sounded exited and just a bit impatient. Really, it was hard to blame him, Sherlock thought, if it had been he ho had been blindfolded and led somewhere, he would inevitably have found some way to get a sneak peak at his surroundings. But he had no doubt John was far better behaved than himself.

"Soon, but it's not the first thing I'm going to take off," Sherlock whispered into John's ear. The reward was immediate; he felt a shiver run through John's body.

He placed a soft kiss on John's neck as his fingers found the buttons in front of the shorter man's vest and undid them. He felt his own pulse rise as he grabbed the hem of the vest and jacket of the man in front of him and slowly removed the items. He heard how John's breath got ragged and when he reached for the buttons of his shirt, he could feel the increased heartbeat and the heat of John's slowly exposing torso.

"I'm going to make you scream," he whispered into John's other ear and let his tongue follow the line of the earlobe before he sucked it into his mouth. John let out a moan that Sherlock felt travel through his own stomach and settle in his groin.

Whit little difficulty he undid the buttons that kept John's shirt secured around the wrists. Slowly he let his fingers travel upwards, feeling the muscles in John's arms tensing with expectation under his touch. He closed his fingers around the hem of the shirt and dragged it off the other man, letting his fingers brush against the naked skin of his arms. He could hear how John struggled to keep his breath, and himself, under control and it was impossible for Sherlock to suppress the smile that forced its way onto his lips.

John stood perfectly still in the suite's vaguely lit sitting room. Sherlock took a step back to watch the trimmed back that now belonged to him. Reaching out a finger, he let it travel down John's spine until it reached the belt of his trousers and followed the leather around the waist to the belt buckle. He stepped closer again and pressed himself against John's body once more. He could feel the ragged breath, the heat flowing from the body in front of him and all the way into his own.

Slowly he undid the belt, trying to conceal how eager he was, but his fingers couldn't stop brushing against John's stomach now and then, each time eliciting a soft moan from the man he was currently wrapped around.

Painfully slowly (to himself as well) he unzipped the trousers and let them drop to the floor. He kneeled down, placing soft kisses along John's spine, and lifted first one foot, then the other, taking off John's socks along with the trousers.

"Sherlock," John whispered softly, "what are you doing?"

Sherlock smiled, trust John to ask a question to which the answer was obvious. He didn't answer, in stead he stood up and moved so he was facing John, his blindfolded, nearly naked man. He put a hand on John's hip and drew him closer, pressing their bodies together. John moved willingly and rested both hands on Sherlock's waist.

When his mouth met John's, the other man gasped a little in surprise before he parted his lips to invite Sherlock in. This was an invite it was hard to refuse, but Sherlock did his best to hold back. In stead he pressed a soft kiss against John's lips, only just letting his tongue brush against his lower lip. John let out a moan, clearly getting impatient. Sherlock could feel his own erection pressing against the fabric of his trousers, next to John's that was pressing against his thigh.

Sherlock moved to stand behind John once again to be able to guide him into the bedroom of the suite. He pushed the shorter man onto the bed and slowly dragged of his pants as well. Sherlock allowed himself to watch John, naked John, for a minute. Blindfolded, small crinkles around the lips (and, Sherlock knew, around the eyes as well) telling a tale about happiness but also harsher times. John pushed himself up to rest on his elbows, giving away the slightly defined muscles hidden underneath the skin. Skin. Sherlock moved his eyes to John's left shoulder, the scar still vaguely visible in the dim light, the angle telling him that John had been on his knees when he had been shot. Sherlock took it all in, somehow, probably due to sentiment, it felt new. He had to remind himself that it was only last night he had last seen all of this.

"Sherlock, I'm getting cold – and you are the last person I would trust to blindfold me," John whispered, breaking the silence.

A smug smile spread over Sherlock's face, "I would say your actions says otherwise."

Sherlock crawled onto the bed, onto John. When he straddled the shorter man, John's shoulders gave in and he fell back on the bed. Sherlock placed a hand on both sides of John's head and leaned in, keeping his lips only inches from John's. He could feel his breath speed up, it was once again getting more ragged. Sherlock let his lips brush against John's and dwelled in the small sounds that elicited from him, a soft moan sent shivers down Sherlock's spine and he smiled against John's mouth.

He let his tongue out to slide across the seam of John's lips, asking to enter. John responded immediately, parting his lips and letting his own tongue brush against Sherlock's, his hands finding their way to Sherlock's hips. For a short second Sherlock lost control and let out a groan as John deepened the kiss considerably. This interrupted his plans, and before he could blink John was on top of him, pinning him down onto the soft mattress

Sherlock tried to protest, but apparently his body disagreed with the protest, because no words came out, only a low-pitched groan as John rocked their erections together.

In his blindness, John found his jaw and placed a trail of small, wet kisses along it. Sherlock let a moan escape his lips as he felt John's hot breath on his neck.

"It doesn't seem fair, now does it?" the shorter man breathed against his skin.

"What?" Sherlock sighed; he couldn't see what John was on about, it was him who had forced himself on top.

"You still being fully dressed." Sherlock could hear the smile in John's voice and felt the iron grip around his wrists loosen before the hands holding him disappeared and instead found the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt.

Sherlock let his now free hands travel onto John's bare back, feeling the soft skin under his fingers. John's mouth followed his hands and kissed a trail on the slowly exposing skin of Sherlock's chest.

"You seem to have missed the idea of a blindfold," Sherlock sighed, but didn't really protest any further as John's fingers began to undo his trousers.

"I am keeping it on, you should be content with that," John said against the skin on Sherlock's stomach. He let his tongue slip inside the waistband of Sherlock's pants, causing Sherlock to involuntarily buck his hips; he could feel his erection begging to be touched. John chuckled, "Eager now, are you?"

His fingers gripped a hold of Sherlock's pants and trousers and pulled them down, freeing the throbbing erection they had been hiding. John took off Sherlock's shoes and socks before finally ridding Sherlock's lower body of all fabric. It was amazing just how dexterous John was even when blindfolded. Sherlock wondered if he had done a good enough job putting the blindfold on, he must have, he didn't make that kind of slo-

"Stop," John pulled him out of his strain of thoughts and licked a trail along Sherlock's erection.

"What?"

"Stop thinking, it's annoying." Sherlock could hear the smile in John's voice. It would seem he had been wanting to say that for ages.

"It's not like I- oh God..." Sherlock exclaimed just as John's mouth closed around his erection and it seemed impossible to keep on talking. John took in his length and Sherlock could feel his tongue twirl around his head and let out a throaty moan. The soft lips and the wet, hot tongue felt so good. He felt more than heard John groan against his erection.

Sherlock buried his fingers in John's short, soft hair and felt how his head bobbed up and down. This was good, too god in fact. John let his tongue follow the cleft of Sherlock's head.

"Oh God yes, John... Oh... Yes... No, no!" Sherlock exclaimed, "If you don't stop I'm... Ah... I'm going to… Oh God, I'm so close..." John stopped moving and let go of Sherlock's member. Sherlock couldn't help but to whimper at the loss of the hot mouth. He looked at John who was now wearing a smirk on his slightly swollen lips.

Sherlock lifted himself enough to grab John's neck and drag him down into a kiss. He could taste a little of himself as his tongue penetrated John's mouth and slit across his soft tongue. John's hands grabbed his the blazer, waistcoat and open shirt, trying to drag them off of him all at once with some difficulty, thereby creating the perfect opportunity.

Sherlock put his full weight into tumbling John over so he once again was on top and in control of the situation. John didn't protest, instead he let out a sigh when Sherlock grinded his erection against his own.

"Sherlock," John moaned, "Please... Please fuck me." Sherlock smiled to himself at how flustered John looked by now, how he wriggled and moaned beneath him. He leant forward and licked the shell of John's ear before sucking the earlobe hungrily. John moaned softly and placed his hands on Sherlock's arse, forcing him forward and caused Sherlock to groan at the friction.

"Your wish is my command," Sherlock whispered in his ear and felt John shutter at the words. He lifted himself so he was able to reach the bedside table and find the bottle of lube tucked away in the drawer. Off course he had prepared for this, and John was going to thank him now – even though he hadn't been too pleased when Sherlock had shown up late for the ceremony. But perhaps that had just as much to do with the fact that Donovan had already begun telling John that he wasn't coming. Why John had insisted on being polite and inviting her and a bunch of other people was beyond him. In fact if it had been up to him, no one should have been invited. Well, perhaps Lestrade, but that was  _it_.

Once again he covered John's body with his own and received a hungry kiss in reward. John's hands dug themselves into his hair and seemed to hold on as if Sherlock was suddenly going to evaporate.

He pulled himself away accompanied by small protesting sounds from John. He clicked the bottle open and heard a small gasp of expectation coming from the man beneath him. After squeezing some gel onto the fingers of one hand he leaning back down and supported his weight on the other arm. He placed a soft kiss on John's lips as his fingers found his entrance and began circling it. John moaned against his mouth and impatiently began to move against his fingers, begging them to enter him.

Sherlock slowly let a finger slide inside of him and felt how John's body easily adjusted itself to his presence. The man underneath him let out a throaty groan and began rocking against his finger, grabbing Sherlock's locks with both hands. Sherlock bucked his hips against him before he lifted himself up to gaze down at a flustered and moaning John on the bed before him.

Sherlock slowly inserted another finger and watched as John grabbed hold of the bedcover for dear life. A loud, throaty groan escaped his lips when Sherlock began to slowly scissor him open. Sherlock looked down at John's leaking erection and felt his own hard member throb at the sight. He couldn't help it; he had to bend down and let his tongue slide up the length and slowly encircled the head.

"Oh fuck... Sherlock... Ah..." John exclaimed at the touch, almost sounding like he didn't know how to be in his own skin, "Fuck me, please just... Fuck me!"

Sherlock looked up at John's face, he was now looking like a man on the brink of sanity.

He extracted his fingers and leaned over to find a pillow and placed it underneath John. He put on an extra layer of lube before he lined himself up at John's entrance and pushed into him.

Sherlock let out a moan at the tight heat that now surrounded him. He leaned over to meet John's lips and felt a groan from the man underneath him as he began moving inside of him. John bit down hard on Sherlock's lower lip when he found his prostate and began hitting it rhythmically, causing Sherlock to jerk a little in surprise.

He raised himself just enough so he could look down at John's face, his swollen, parted lips told of a high state of agitation, the warm breath that hit Sherlock's face was becoming more ragged by the second.

"There's no escaping me now," Sherlock whispered and pushed himself hard into the man beneath him.

He could see John making several attempts at answering before he finally breathed out almost inaudibly, "Why would I want to."

Sherlock bent down once again and placed a soft, almost chaste kiss on John's lips and made a small trail of kisses along his jaw before he licked his earlobe and whispered in a husky voice, "I love you John."

In reply John turned his head and captured Sherlock's lips before whispering back, "And I love you, you madman."

Sherlock reached down between them and closed his fingers around John's erection. John let out a throaty groan at the touch and clung to Sherlock like he was the only thing left for him to hold on to as Sherlock began stroking him in timing with his thrusts. He could feel his own body beginning to quiver, not just because of his own nerves being stimulated, but because of the effect he had on the man lying beneath him, surrounding him.

He could feel John beginning to clench around him; he was close. Sherlock gazed down at John; he was so close to the edge now. He let his lips ghost over his parted lips and felt John let out a ragged sigh, "I'm... Oh shit, Sherl..." John's words disappeared into unintelligible sounds.

"Come for me John," Sherlock whispered in a husky voice and felt how John let go, his muscles spasm.

John let out a loud groan and Sherlock felt how he came in his hand.

He pressed his lips against John's and pushed himself harder into him as he felt his own orgasm roll over him. The few seconds of silent bliss hit him and he came with a moan inside of John.

They lay there panting for a while before Sherlock placed a soft kiss on John's neck, pulled himself out and rolled onto his back next to John.

He could hear John's breathing return to normal and watched the outlines of his body as it was slowly descending from the pitch of orgasm.

John took off the blindfold and Sherlock could feel his eyes upon him.

"Well, I may need to go to the bathroom," he said and turned over to find a light-switch. Sherlock nuzzled down into the bedcovers and closed his eyes; this was something he never got tired of, this post-coital bliss he was now feeling.

"Sherlock?" John's voice cut through his calm thoughts.

"Mmm?" he managed to reply idly.

"Sherlock, where exactly are we? This..." John trailed off.

"The royal suite at The Lanesborough Hotel – Mycroft's treat," he added hurriedly before John could protest at the obviously expensive suite.

"Does he know it's his treat?" John asked with obvious doubt in his voice.

"He probably does by now," Sherlock replied and tried to put as much indifference in his voice as possible. To Sherlock's satisfaction John seemed to drop the subject and let out a sigh before leaving the bed.

Sherlock wondered if this was going to change anything between them. Being in an official civil partnership was, after all, something different, wasn't it? Truth be told he didn't feel any different, except from the fact he was laying in a very comfortable, and probably equally expensive, bed in a far too expensive hotel. Was he supposed to feel any different? And if so, how? This was one if the reasons he didn't like to engage in the activities of  _normal_ people - it was simply to... Messy, no order reigned in this world of idiotic normality.

"So, tell me, how does it feel to be my husband?" John's cheerful voice sounded from the doorway.

"What?" Sherlock looked at John as he stood there naked and wearing a satisfied smile.

"I said-" John began.

"I heard what you said," Sherlock interrupted him, "But I find the question to be how  _you_  feel about being  _mine_."

John shot him a mischievous smile, "hHmm... I have to get back to you on that. So tell me, is Mycroft really paying?"

"Yes," Sherlock sighed, this was one of those silly little repetition-games John played from time to time.

"In that case I think we should call room service - they have a nicely expensive champagne-menu." He smiled as he lay back down on the bed. Sherlock lifted an eyebrow and scanned John over, it would seem he was being serious, "I don't see why he would mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that would be the end.
> 
> Please let me know what you think of the whole thing, good and bad, comments, stuff I should think about for future writing etc.


End file.
